Noctus Memoria

I am a monk

2010-01-03T02:41:00.001-08:00

Enough said

the future belongs to those who do not wait

2009-12-19T00:51:00.001-08:00

3 weeks to ns. pure fun and life as I join other injured men in braving rain and thunderstorms and pe training.

which reminds me, taking the train down from serangoon to bishan down the circle line rly brings back nostalgic memories of me waking up at the early hours of 7 plus (early for me i guess) in the morning to head down to sch for consultations and a host of mugging at the wishing well area.

Those days had their twisted joy in a way. Mugging till 12 before declaring our absolute failure in the upcoming tests and going to 7-11 to eat their expensive hotdogs. After that, we would just continue trying to mug until the time came to take our exams later in the afternoon.

have a bad cold from australia. thats it, jai

The hawish Moshe Dayan

2009-11-07T02:42:00.001-08:00

Oh..how history has interpreted you..

The dovish Moshe Dayan..

2009-11-07T02:40:00.001-08:00

Ihist lolz

2009-11-07T02:07:00.001-08:00

Imagine my 'surprised' when mugging kashmir lol

2009-10-15T05:56:00.001-07:00

If there is a god out there who can "break, blow or batter my heart" and "ravish" me as punishment for slacking, then perhaps I will be more motivated to mug harder.

oh well, since this won't ever happen, I shall just pretend that theres such a thing happening hahahaha.

I will burn my bread, oops i mean dread.

wow....

2009-09-23T05:14:00.000-07:00

wow just wow. misread and didn't read instructions properly respectively for seahist and literature prelim papers. like woohoooo....

i don't rly care much for lit, considering that lye just gave me a "you're so dumb i can't be bothered to laugh at you" look at the end of the paper on top of that.

I suppose the seahist accident will forever immortalize within my mind that 1940-1945 was the bloody japanese occupation instead of the god-given decol with the americans being benevolent bastards who RLY RLY wanted sea to achieve independence out of the goodness of their hearts.

heck, why am i worrying about it man? after all last choice is just cambridge and oxford. But i rly rly want to get into nus which is like ZOUNDS so much more difficult than studying at london. Sianz man, worse case scenario go harvard lah..

btw, if you didn't get any of that, dun try. Its only understood by birds of the same feather.

2009-09-08T00:58:00.001-07:00

Is it disturbing to consider about dropping out of school altogether and researching means to get jobs such as cleaning and construction work about 1 week before prelims?

Of course not, why would it be man?

sianz, this is it. It truly doesen get worse than this.

2009-07-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

the visit at the hospital was quite sobering. Apart from skipping maths lecture as i always do, I was quite reflective of my life up till now, what my life means, and in general all the standard garbage a semi-emo kid would think about. what can i say, some people actually think it adds character and who am i to dispute that.

crap aside, I was feeling abit sad and depressed as I went for my therapy. I heard that after a fracture, no matter how gd the recovery is, theres bound to be some lasting effects and limited flexibility compared to my old hand. As I sat around and looked at the other people around, I began to realize how insignificant my injury was.

There was a man with a horribly scarred 4th finger, with a missing 5th finger, sitting silently next to me at the table, applying lotion to his swollen digits. I dun know how he sustained that injury but looking at him, somehow I detect a sense of sadness. Beside me was also another man who could not even move his wrist without extreme pain, and had to rely on a machine to slowly flex it for him.

Looking at these people, I have no right to feel depressed at all. On a side note, the toys that the doctor gave to me were pretty ok. one of the machines was a giant box like thing that I had to put my hand in while therapeutic particles swirled around at a comfortable 40 degrees. Felt like drifting off to sleep just then.

Nothing much at sch nowadays. didn't take cts, can't complain.

its gonna be a long road ahead. ms ng wun be around in term 4. that means all sea hist questions and doubts have to be cleared like NOW. Ms Ng is a great teacher, I wonder how she actually acquired that experience at teaching. There are teachers who only know how to read from notes and can't explain for nuts. There are teachers who know how to read from notes (they fail at life if they can't read in any case) and find ways to make them interesting. And there are teachers who challenge you to actually think and form your own assumptions which is a very fine line to walk. Leave students to their own imagination and they generally submit unmarkable stuff thats too general and supposedly indicative of "creativity". restrict a student too much, and they wun find much interest in actually learning. after all its just rinse and repeat. Ms Ng is a teacher who finds that right balance, I wonder whether its just her natural personality or built on experience.

In ri, teachers like G. Matthews livened up class by bringing in clear and powerful media and entertainment to build up interest and links to the issue. Ms Yang Chay Mei, had a sarcastic biting wit and insulted basically anyone she looked at. Funny, I liked her. Despite making fun of everything from our names to our tendencies, (she once called me a sickly man incapable of enduring illness becos of my green jacket), it became a challenge for me to score well in chinese. I was just motivated to prove her wrong. Well, she did expected me to get an A; in her words I COULD get an A. I guess it was a minor disappointment for her in the end. and how could i forget alba, our resident literature witch, who struck fear in our hearts and despair at her fail level in life? She was also 1 who employed biting sarcasm and insults to the full and I enjoyed her class tremendously. heck, everyone did.

Last but not least, the greatest teacher on earth is my sec 1 english teacher. Razif. The ultimate. "hey boys, i shall be taking mc for 2 weeks, cya then" a slacker for a teacher. a student's best dream.

nitez

2009-06-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

sianz, i'm typing with just my left hand now. had an epic fall and fractured my right wrist. can't type much anway. prob will devote a better post when i can actually type with both hands.

pics of my injured hand are censored, ronald if ya want them get them from me directly. i'm not posting the ugly shit on my blog man

cya and may the world never go to tan tock seng hospital. made me wait 4 hrs just for a doc to let me go home....

2009-05-19T06:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a man with a short attention span and espeically not suited for multitasking. That means inability to juggle what I want to do and what I have to do do. Like everyone else...

Somehow, I wish i could just go to bed someday, and wake up to find that a-levels have passed by for 2 months. Yet, after As and army, is a university i have not even thought about and the real life.

There are many people in life who end up regretting their life because they did not do the appropriate things beforehand. Such as studying hard or training hard. But the worst thing is not even knowing there was something you could have done, never even noticed it. and the future is forever changed.

at the age of 18, i have not yet decided on my path in life. I always tell myself, I'm leaving myself open to opportunities, afraid to commit.

I realise now, that I'm leaving myself open to 1 thing as well:

regret

2009-04-13T07:56:00.001-07:00

muhahahahahahaaahahahhahahahahahahahha

if you're wondering what the random laughter at the front is, wonder no longr
muahahahahahahaha

okok, sry. was feeling random. Besides theres rly nothing much to say bout life aside from training, studying, playing and drinking.

The key to training well and successful lies in self-motivation.

The answer to studying well is to start early

The trick to playing stylishly is to practice constantly.

The consequence of drinking too much is well... headaches

When life is comprised of this 4 elements, sometimes its a chore to keep a healthy balance, moderation is needed to breed a world-class Rafflesian.

Oh ya, forgot to add 1 major element in life, its slacking. Slacking is even more tempting and addictive than playing, if you can believe that. Oh well, i need more kick in life.

It means: Sleeping

bye

2009-03-19T07:27:00.001-07:00

damnit, mugging for cts is rly not going that well... maths is like total gg. can't dare to hope more for a C. and competition as well....

if only training and studies never ever clashed.

whats left of me, pick up the pieces and make me a new person

Movie Thoughts - The Sky Crawlers (Highly Late)

2009-02-24T07:54:00.000-08:00

I have never ever watched any of Mamoru Oshii's anime works, despite having heard of his many anime movies like Ghost in the Shell, Innocence and Jinroh being legendary works and productions, rivalled by other anime greats such as Hayao Miyazaki of "Castle in the Sky" fame. Yet, while Oshii has his dedicated fanbase who absolutely love his directorial style, there are also many others who mock his slow ponderous way of telling a story through inaction, claiming that it was boring as hell to watch.

If his latest work, "The Sky Crawlers", is any indication of his distinctive style, consider me a rabid fanboy of him then. Yes, its slow. Yes, its ponderous. Yes, it seems like it rips you off. Many of Oshii's movies have explosive, violent openings that highlight the gruesome nature of war and conflict. Yet, for "The Sky Crawlers", beyond the action-packed opening, its other brief periods of intense action scenes are separated by long stretches of seemingly mundane exposition of the story, that leaves many bewildered at the abrupt change of mood and atmosphere.

The story of "The Sky Crawlers" has a sci-fi yet retro feel to it at the same time. It tells the story of Kildren, genetically modified children who never age and can only ever die in combat. They are used as pilots in aerial combats by rival companies in some twisted blood sport, where people around the world support their respective "teams". Yet, even the nature of their deaths is reason for debate as the movies never makes the full facts clear. The main character Yuiichi, arrives at an airforce base, and immediately assumes the role of the ace pilot within the airforce squad, replacing a mysterious former pilot whose fate is unknown. There is no explanation as to why he transferred, how his skills were developed. He himself does not know all these details, brushing them off with a simple "I can't remember", not bothering to pursue such details.

Yet, there is a mysterious air of intrigue surrounding the pilot he is replacing. The former pilot could not have been killed in action, because his personal aircraft was still in perfect condition and ownership is now passed on to Yuuichi. Yet, no one is willing to answer Yuiichi's query of the previous pilot's status. The beautiful base commander Kusanagi Suito is immediately heavily implied to be related to the missing pilot, yet she treats Yuuichi coldly and refuses any notion of having more than a professional relationship.

Through all this slow exposition of the story's details, Oshii's style of letting inaction do the talking immediately becomes more striking. We see characters doing mundane stuff, folding newspapers meticulously, stoning, lazing around in the base. Initially, one might wonder at the sanity of the director in allowing 10 seconds of footage showing 1 person doing nothing but fold his newspaper. Yet all these simple, seemingly unrelated shots come back to haunt you with a deep sense of deja vu, as the same people who die in combat are replaced by the other people with completely the same face, the same habits, the same personalities, with only their names being different late in the movies.

Outside of the base, the Kildren indulge in a number vices, as though they are trying to inject fun and excitement into their seemingly pointless job and life. Yet, despite all the heavy drinking, heavy smoking, and constant visits to a brothel, one can't help but feel nothing has really changed. the Kildren seek out such pleasures as though they are routine, matter-of-fact. They do not really enjoy it, but do it only because they can. After all, they are just kids, they will never die naturally. Why not do anything they fancy?

Within the movies, are 2 drastic methods of portrayal. Characters are handdrawn, in a simplistic manner, that they seem to rival the animation quality of animes back in in the 1950s. This is heavily contrasted by the astonishing high level of environmental renders. The battle planes are superbly rendered, sometimes approaching a near-photorealistic level. The detail given to the smoke and debris, cannon fire within the action scenes of aerial dogfights is staggering.

Personally, I had difficulty reconciliating the radically different styles of characters and backgrounds. Yet, Oshii deliberately uses this contrast, to highlight the beauty of their battle planes as opposed to the characters. It seems as though the Kildren themselves are represented as blights and imperfections.

I find Oshii's work hauntingly beautiful. For one, it never ever really tells you what is going on. It feeds you a scrap of information here and there, and leaves you to piece together the pieces. In many places, you find yourself asking many questions, and developing your own interpretations. The characters seem to be as confused as you; they know only as much as they tell you, but most do not bother about worrying about the truth.

For instance, a mysterious enemy known as the undefeatable "Teacher" is shown to be a master pilot, above the leagues of all others. Even Yuiichi's top notch skills are helpless against the "Teacher"'s absolute mastery of the sky. Yet, who is this enemy? Where did he come from? No one knows, because anyone who has seen him in close range never came back alive.

The climax of the story is dealt when Yuuichi finally realizes he is merely either a copy or a revived form of the former pilot who was killed by his lover Kusanagi Suito. He realizes that all Kildren are trapped in an endless loop of death, in which they fly, die and are then reborn. Even though Suito killed him to grant him release from this terrible cycle of dying in meaningless combat, he is still forcibly thrust back into this mindless world of repetition. He swears to defeat the "Teacher", to attempt to change his fate, and makes Suito promise to have hope, instead of despairing for both of them.

Here, we no longer see the typical hero who survives all odds and defeat the enemy through a nonsensical method called the "plotkai". To me, during Yuuichi's 1 on 1 dogfight against the "Teacher", it seemed that everyone were holding their breath. Would Yuuchi manage to defeat the undefeatable? In a flash, everyone and Yuuichi's hopes were crushed when the "Teacher" emerged from nowhere and mercilessly riddled Yuiichi's aircraft with fire, soaking the cockpit in waves of blood, mutilating his supposedly immortal body.

Suito waits a long time at the takeoff runway, but despair overcomes her and she soon goes back, presumably back to an eternal life of repetition and meaninglessness...

What I loved and hated was the lack of answers, yet it is this very quality to makes the movies so unforgettable even though a long time has passed since I agreed to watch the movie dubiously with yuchen and augustine, who insisted that it was worth a watch. Who is the Teacher? I believe he is some omnipresent form of control, to keep the Kildren in their vicious cycle of despair, all for the blood sport the world so enjoys. Untill, the Teacher is defeated, the Kildren will never be free in a sense. What become of the rest of the characters? Who knows. I remembered walking out of the cinema with a heavy heart, my mind buzzing with questions. And these were what gave me the interest to research some of Oshii's works and styles.

Lolz, I think I harped enough about this movie's sheer awesomeness. I shall attempt to secure the blu-ray copy soon. But seeing as it lacks english subtitles....I can either call upon friends who can translate it, or wait for a American version...

Nitez dudes.

Damn

2009-02-15T04:26:00.000-08:00

I hate side-splits, end of story. Its the most painful stretch I ever encountered in my life, and any self-respecting guy with balls would agree with me.

2 major stretches in store for the next month...ankle stretch and hip stretch. (which means side split) according to weijian, who spent bout 15 mins diagnosing my inherent leg problems and its inability to walk straight, these 2 are supposedly the weakest link in my body. Hence, after my right leg recovers from a slightly popped muscle, its full-time stretching everyday, if possible.

I tink i should really focus more on my xfj, considering the height is still dam suck, and it lacks the explosive power and momentum it really should have. That plus, head movements. Make a conscious effort to look straight ahead.

its back to gym training on mon, until I have settled into a proper rythmn once again, i'm using the rj or ri gym instead.

and ughhh....side splits are the reason why i hate stretching at all...

damn.

realized i have no photos thus far. so shall upload random pics becos everyone likes to randomly post pics, hence who am i to question the proper way to use a blog?

First few are pics messing around during the putting up of posters during CCA Feste. Behold the mighty facepalm ^^

Theres a shot of phengy and sengy eating out together at some sushi restaurant that rlyrlyrly smelled like wine. We spent a gd 3 hrs there and doing random stuff on the conveyor belt lolz.

and behold the news spokespeople for coca cola, recently dugged out with from treasure trove of anicent power ranger figurines.

2009-01-12T05:36:00.001-08:00

yo first day of sch..

was ok bah. Got lost in maths lect from the very start though. lots of catching up to do.

Preparing for open house, I better not screw up ^^

2009-01-05T08:33:00.001-08:00

2009-01-05T08:02:00.001-08:00

2009-01-05T08:01:00.003-08:00

2009-01-05T08:01:00.001-08:00

2009-01-05T07:59:00.000-08:00

Cryptic

2008-12-24T05:28:00.000-08:00

I can't tell if i'm happy or sad sometimes, wat do you do when you're in those kinds of situation. Play

2008-12-07T05:51:00.001-08:00

yeayea, the guys's posting rly gone nuts. I tink he went bonkers cos he spent the past week in a state of energy deprivation, including training and staying up 1 whole nite to watch the EVANGELION movie. anws, today, i'm feeling random, so I'm gonna post 10 REASONS WHY RONALD SIM IS A SCREWED UP BASTARD.

In order of increasing flailure

Reason number 10: Hes a narcisstic bastard through and through. You know wat, despite everyone saying i'm a camwhore, hes actually a bigger 1 than me. I only take cool pics at most. But he always asks me to take VIDEOS, vidoes of flailure footage at that of him practicing wushu.

9: He does a mabu every now and then, especially on the roads with no sense of honour and dignity. Srsly, dun need to pretend to be a horse that badly. I know you're an animal ^^

8: He can do a spilt. and we all know, only girls can do spilts. All the rest are girls in disguise (DUN SUE ME. Meant in the name of fun!!! honest!! No insult is meant to animal or human here)

7: A sadistic guy who makes you go so low in mabu and make you hold it there, while he inspects your butt position and hand movements.

6: Fugly slow. He makes Ichigo look fast in hollow mode. why a ichigo makes my tortoise look like the Flash.

5: He wears glasses (^^)

4: He says more vulgarities than i score double SS in Dante must die mode in DMC3.

3: hes the NAN DA TOU (north big head) Has the biggest head in all of rj. Literally and figuratively

2: Has a PSP, but does not buy FF games (Ok...i know. I'm running out of things to abuse him. To be honest I ran out of reasons at the 6th 1, but for the sake of making it 10, yea..)

1: I'm teh awesome win. I own any1 by default ^^

Thats it, I'm anticipating my leg ligaments and tnedons to snap by next week's training >.<

bb

Yoiz

2008-11-22T06:06:00.000-08:00

update time, the hols seem to be quite allrite for me. Been pretty fulfilling despite to lack of social activities. Wushu training has been oddly satisfying despite many setbacks and problematic areas.

Looking at video footage of my taolu, it was a rly humbling experience and an indication of how far i still need to do. My movements were rly quite ugly and un-smooth. damnit, i need to make it nice-looking ish.

anws, along with training, I'm pretty much living a contented life. Wake up, play, exercise, study, sleep. That pretty much sums up my entire day. and i dun mind that at all. Such simple days are to be cherished before school starts. where the horror that is A-levels exist.

hmmm, friends have told me that i have changed somewat. its true. I have indeed become a much more open person, (open to both clean and sick stuff) that i was back in secondary school. where i existed in a world that comprised of only me and my close friends. But now, wat has rly changed? i'm still mostly the old me. The person who would rather sleep all day rather than going out and doing stuff, who is willing to spend 10 hrs everyday playing nonstop, who still appears offline on msn all the time, a person who would rather listen more than he talks most of the time.

I'm still the old me. I'm glad. ^^

DO NOT DRINK BEER TO EXCESS

2008-11-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

yea, look at the title. 1 thing i learned is not to drink to excess. that includes plain water too. everything done in moderation mah. too much of a gd or bad thing kills. not that i'm giving a lecture or sermon, just know your limits. of cos, its up to you to define your limits too. ^^

Went for wang lee hom's concert. In a word: AWESOME. KICKASS dragon guitar, IMMENSE LCD screens. Lovely songs and presentation. I would do a track by track review but i'm too lazy and i kinda forgot the exact list of songs he sang. The speakers were dam friking loud. I got a headache after shouting myself hoarse to hear myself over the din.

Anws, wushu chalet and class chalet had their separate interesting stories. Many thanks to cherrie once again for being a superb actress lol. Haiz, hope shes still not offended at my remarks. ^^ oh well, showing godhand to the people at both chalets was fun. Especially the stomping and ball-bustering. Wushu people were more engaged, as the moves were essentially real martial moves. Some of which we are learning, like pan kong tui. a move where we spin our legs in a clockwise direction upwards as we regain our feet when lying down.

speaking of which, my memory card screwed up. that means 300 hrs worth of persona 3 gameplay with maxed out helel and messiah personas, plus 5 missions worth of SS in dmc3, which took me 6 months of training. well done. currently restarting KH 2, to experience the wonders of mansex once more.

speaking of which, i lost a self-made schedule for the hols. it included a highly detailed timeline of wat to do, including exercise, study, and self interest matters. such as piano. DAMN

thus, i declare this blog updated, pics will have to come at a later time for chalets. cya

2008-10-17T07:52:00.001-07:00

PW OP was srsly screwed up. Naidu called me monotonous. WTH? I'm only monotonous when I dun feel like talking, or sleeping, or sleepy? I can't believe it man.

I tink i'm in depression... =.=

Riddle of the year

2008-10-10T01:48:00.001-07:00

Yoiz, update time. Heres the question of the year. Identify the above person and stand to win attractive prizes! Btw, hes not Rain, the korean singer however much he looks like him. Start guessing folks!

2008-10-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

Yoiz, been a pretty long break I took. I was planning some emo chinese essays for the epic win. But being the lazy bastard I am, I can't be bothered to type it out, so those expecting tear-jerking love tragedies that I'm so fond of writing have got to wait abit (if any), untill I get my creative juices flowing in the forgotten parts of my brain.

Anw, been an interesting promos...somehow I can't recall being so relaxed and unstressed before. True, Hist was a real pain in the ass, in which I had to resort to spotting, and info can't slipping out of my mind 1 day after I read through it. Writing 4 essays in 3 hrs rly challenged my writing skills, as I only recall writing so much and so fast in my chinese O level last year.

I finally went for my first 3 wushu lessons, under Ronald-sama's careful guidance. Its been rly fun waving the sabre around in a bad-ass no nonsense manner. and the people are rly nice and friendly too. Can't say I agreed with how Ronald introduced me to the wushu team on the blog...considering the pic was less than flattering. Way to go for first impressions lol

Anw, this marks a new beginning and challenge. I can pretty much focus wholesomely on wushu, seeing as my econs flailed and i can't stay in o-team anymore. If i do....lol, its time to apply the imbar time-management skillzs I learnt from persona 3.

Before I leave, heres a pic of Grandmaster Ronald, whos adamant that his subtexting skillzs are second to none.

Part 4

2008-09-21T07:32:00.001-07:00

The legendary father of gaseous ansai. Decided to use the bin as clothes. We got caught by the security guard who went 'wth you doing with the bin?!' we were originally planning to roll tat wei downhill lol

Part 3

2008-09-21T07:27:00.001-07:00

Wat happens when 6 bored guys play dare or dare. The head in the bin belongs to yours truly with ansai and tat wei as helpers. Yanwei, yuchen and ronald were too busy spasming.

Part 2

2008-09-21T07:21:00.001-07:00

Dear raja prob never felt so pleasured before lol

Hi there, feeling stressed for promos?

2008-09-21T07:19:00.001-07:00

Yuchen giving dear raja a power boost through his groin located power socket

One heck of a week

2008-09-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, long overdue post. But its been 1 heck of a week (2 actually) First off, I went for the safra half marathon run with yanwei and jimmy last last sun. which is 20 something aug i tink. But anyway, it was 1 heck of run, considering all the problems that arose. My parent s were already pissed off that I signed up last minute on the very last day, and my poor sense of direction resulted in me and my mum getting lost for close to 30 min around the run area.

by the time I managed to locate yanwei and jimmy who were similarly pissed off at my epic sense of direction, my mum was about to blow up then and there. But they can't rly blame me, yanwei told me to friking wait at the memorial and I saw these 2 tall white structures in the distance, and when i reached them, it said something something memorial. BUT NOOOO... yanwei said it was some other obscure memorial that looks like some castle like building. So I went off to some castle like structure and guess wat, its a friking church!!! the one 骗人的地方.

So..when we were ready to embark on our 21 km run, we all gathered at the bride-road area next to esplanade which was epically packed with people. And thus our journey begins. First off, Jimmy dieded cos of lack of warmups kneecap problems, which resulted in yanwei abandoning us by the time we reached the 2km mark. Stayed with jimmy as we ran across the bloody long Benjamin Sheares Bridge and enjoying a great sight as the sun rose over the city. Interesting experience stopping at random bushes and shrubs and going behind to pee, only to find 10 others doing the same. Wonder how the girls and women survived lol.

Anyway, as jimmy's form picked up, mine decreased. I was quite exhausted by the time we reached east Coast park, around the 11 km mark. Along the way we found the remains of a energy gel wrapper and the ground, which in the words of jimmy is "a big signpost that says Yanwei was here". LOL

We ate three each along the route on the 8, 14, and 17.5km marks while walking for bout close to 5 km all in all. Yanwei, being the ugly dude that he is, kindly called us bout close to 4 times, askign where the hell we were. When he first called, we were around the 16km mark, and he said he finished the race 45 minutes ago... T.T...

As we neared the final 2 km, Jimmy played "Through the Fire and the Flames" to pump us both all and smoke our way past all obstacles to the finish without stopping. Guess wat, after the first 200m, my leg almost gave way and cramped up. Luckily (or Unluckily) a road marshall was there to set me down and put me through some stretching exercise with jimmy's help, which turned out to be an insane torture session that ronald would put me through. I was almost screaming at the stretch he put me through and told him I would rather run with the cramp. Jimmy "left me in the dust" near the final 1 km, while I struggled to run ahead of a bunch of canoeing girls. After we finished, me and jimmy took a camwhore pic, before going off for lunch and going home.

Me and jimmy camwhoring, pic courtesy of Yanwei ^^

My legs gave me quite a bit of trouble over the few days with phantom pains here and there. Speaking of which, I screwed up interclass games >.< We would have gotten first if I had not forgotten to dribble the ball instead of continuing with my spastic way of handling the ball. Me and Mattew were totally pwned by rosaline and kexin in the way we handled the ball...zzzzz

On Fri, I want like to express thanks to the gazillion people who abandoned me on the day itself for teh kbox session. The culprits are as follows: Polly, Kris, Quynh Anh, Ani (who suddenly told me she was going and then saying no 5 mins later T.T), and chermaine. ok lah, chermaine never rly said she would go...so i guess shes forgiven. And quynh anh wanted to go too, save for the rest of the ponners... so ya, not rly her fault too. For the rest, prepare for total annihiliation when I get back to sch.

regardless, it was still a pretty fun session. I sang loads more than I have ever sang, while totally spamming lee hom songs. and now, we move on the the sun Voices of the Dragon RICO concert. Being more of a showcase of the imbar erhus RICO, there was a serious shortage of orchestral songs. however, I would like to say that my yangqin juniors were IMBAR. Choong An, and Jonathan (yes you jonathan) Was utterly blown away by your performance even though you 2 had limited experience. Continuing pwning in yangqin!! And the alumni performers got to wear teh AWESOME cool all black suits with teh "BLAZING HOT PINK TIE" according to jimmy. muhahaha, love it!

OH YA!! LAO ZHENG turned up just before the performance and through his holy prescence, he was allowed inside the practice rooms. It was indeed a holy moment, and I opened the door to the erhu empire for him and said, "everyone pls welcome God." then everyone was like "wheres god?" I looked behind and God was GONE. I chased after him and dragged him back where his ardent devotees went all screaming "ZHENG"!!!" "GOD!!!" EPIC LOL When 20 something people call out your name as though you're their savior, you can imagine teh holiness flooding the entire room.

Lao Zheng punished me later by taupoking twice me outside in the foyer, with all the rest of the audience around after the concert, in which yanwei diwei and others took part. (I dunno, you kinda can't see who took part when you're getting crushed to the ground. lol) Geez, Lao Zheng is way too humble. He never wants others to acknowledge his power and epic holiness.

Heres some pics.

Me, edmund and junYu, 3 guys in cool black suits and hot red ties.

Random shot of the tanbo prac room

Edmund being the cello fanatic that he is

Me and Kwang yi, our ever pro pipa and piano player.

Me and Jia Huang

Me and Jowie, who has not joined the floating body club yet haha

Our tanbo mascot Jiayu!!

yong Kiam!!!!

Jimmy being spastic, his expression is wtf lol

Out in the corridor with our guest performer, Kweky, who EPIC camera-shy. Me and jimmy spent most of our free time begging her to take a shot with us (in jimmy's case) or sneaking in a shot (in my case lol)

Me and Biran!! Just like old times ^^, all working hard for a concert together.

Me and my PRO PRO juniors haha, jonathan and Choong An. Both of you did very well and I'm proud to be your senior. Jonathan, have more confidence in yourself!! You can do it!! I started out with very low self-esteem in sec 1 and 2 as well. Just work hard without regrets!

YAY!!! I managed to get shot with kweky. She was helping jimmy and biran take a pic and I snuck up on her. Yes, epic sneaking skillzs FTW

Carrying Chun yin into my arms. AWWWW, wun a certain someone be so jealous? LOL

Hong Bo practicing seriously for his "War horse" solo, which was rly nice.

Ji An being too busy pracing to smile.

Rui jun having a headache i tink lol

valance and Providence together. Heavens shall tremble.

Me and Klaston!!, Jiemin in the background trying to do a heart shape.

Cool sia

Me praying to lao Zheng, while Lao Zheng engages in self parodying by praying to me.

Chun Yin with ahem a certain someone ehhhhhhh

Serious Zheng and me

The erhu section in love with lao zheng

We get to share limelight with ZHENG

My height has increased by 5 cm in this pic lol. Speaks volumes about his height haha

Me and Kiang hon!! our ancient grandmaster of suona who came for free lunch, dinner, lodging and free rides. muhahaha

Me and our uprising suona star, kah Khang!

Jowie taking a swipe at me as I attempted to take a few more pics after the concert ended

teh Hot alumni people!!

Sengy and Phengy made it for my concert!!! Even though Phengy was sleeping throughout the concert... next time, your money is mine!

Me and Yanwei, being amazed by the entity that is teh holy ZHENG

Alumni unite! in the glory of zheng

the Elements on a roll

Wats with yanwei's hand gestures though?

One happy Co family ^^

Marvel at it. God in your face

Why is Zheng in our every pic manz?

Another grp shot of the handsome dudes of teh alumni. haha

YES, I finally got an official pic with Kweky. I was so happy, i totally forgot that she was a girl and put my arm around her. She kinda pushed me away and said "Keep your hands off me" or something to that effect. Walao, got pwned in front of jimmy, biran, yong sheng and the rest lah.. Sorry lah, Kweky, 不是有意的！！！

I can take more MORE!!!!

2008-08-24T08:53:00.001-07:00

I need more focus in my life. I need to concentrate on my promos. Failing would mean not only failure in general but failing to remain in O-Team. Granted, like most of my friends would say (and I agree most of the time as well), getting into Song and Dance Comm is the biggest joke for me, considering I can't sing (yes, I'm finally facing the facts) and I can't dance (yea, American Idol Quotes FTW)

True, I'm probably nothing more than a benchmark for others to measure their worth against, and I'm probably better off in some other comm...but I joined with the intention of stepping out of my comfort zone. I don't want to simply join a comm with the slackest job simply to reap the benefits of serving in O-Team; I want to commit myself and work hard for something I actually believe in. True, I might be a fish out of water in song and dance comm, but thats not going to stop me working my ass off to contribute whatever I can for the comm. Considering that I'm now floundering without a proper CCA to call home, I'm hoping against hope that I can make it to Wushu team. Once again, I swear to Zheng that I will do my best to make Wushu a CCA I can actually feel a sense of belonging. That feeling that used to be so strong in RICO has now disappeared.

O-Team is a challenge to me, and I want to face up to it. Granted I would most probably be complaining about random shit adminstrative work, hopefully I dun annoy my friends doing that ^^. Hmmm, Lifes been a drag so far, and I need to find my motivation again. Been building up a bad reputation together with Matthew lol, should change it before we degenerate even more in the eyes of the teachers....

Cya

2008-08-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Having a stomachache sucks. Big time.

I totally can't drink any cool or cold stuff before I run off to the toilet to give birth to ansai, adding another pile of ugly beings to the world. I have a feeling its a case of mild food poisoning. But from where?

Could be from RJ snack store. For one, i been eating snacks from that store quite recently and i do know that their food hygiene isn't very gd at all. But ah well...

At least i got to skip maths test. WOOHOO

ok, going to bed now. Its a new record folks. I'm sleeping at 12.

(Btw, ronald. Have i made it into wushu?)

2008-08-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sleeping at 4.30 am in the morning is srsly fun. No joke. I was ready to just heck it and watch youtube till 5.30 in the morning before eating breakfast, but my dad forced me to go off to bed. Good thing too, considering how tired I am, I might have dropped dead in school from exhaustion. I'm sure most of my friends know by now, that I simply can't wake up or tolerate any interruptions to my sleep time.

Zzzzzz, so many planned outings and gatherings over the holidays, but rly need to find people to go. A lack of manpower is the most pressing problem. Oh well, at least I made it into O-team. Gotta stop sleeping in class or handing up late work. A white slip is the most dreaded object to me rite now. That means no ponning of lessons as well. Grats, ronald has infected me with his ponner attitudes man.

Speaking of which, i have a lit essay to do. Soleja

Heres a song before i go: 愛錯 by 王力宏

北风毫不留情把叶子吹落
脆弱的她选择了逃脱
叶子失去消息风才感觉寂寞
整个冬天北风的痛没人能说

我从来没想过我会这样做从来没爱过所以爱错
我从哪里起飞从哪里降落多少不能原谅的错却不能重来过

翻开回忆角落完美的生活
以为幸福都可以掌握
仔细回味当初那个故事背后
Oh 原来是我犯下从没承认的错

我从来没想过我会这样做从来没爱过所以爱错
我从哪里起飞从哪里降落多少不能原谅的错却不能重来过

在这少了你的世界 Oh~
找不回那些感觉其实我不想道别那些过去

我从来没想过我会这样做
从来没爱过所以爱错 (从来没有爱过那么认真)
我从哪里起飞从哪里降落
多少不能原谅的错却不能重来过
我从来没想过我会这样做
从来没爱过所以爱错
我从哪里起飞从哪里降落
多少不能原谅的错
请你原谅我的爱错

^^

CUTE

2008-08-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

hey there, how ya doing? Life sucks big time man, but ya know wat, there are certain people in the world who brighten up the world just becos they are there. I'm not talking about my friends, cos they are usually so ugly, death itself spat themselves out to save himself from the torment of looking at their faces. (Yes, my friends shld know what I'm talking about ^^)

Anw, the people whom I refer to is...... CUTE COSPLAYERS!!
The story goes, Valance was awake at around 2 am one night. He stayed up rly late not becos he didn't want to sleep, but becos he had a dumbass hist term paper due the next
day. He was feeling so tired and bored, he went surfing on the internet. What he saw pleased him greatly and livened up his drive and spirits. By the time he was psyched up to do work once more, it was 5 am in the morning. One Word: SCREWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

So ya, carrying on from my previous year's post of the best and brightest FF cosplayers, I hereby present to you: THE BEST COSPLAYERS THE PLANET HAS EVER SEEN. I searched long and hard, far and wide, censored and uncensored to get hold of this pics. Ronald: you can start downloading them now ^^. The Yuna cosplayer in the wedding dress is in a word: HEAVENLY

ok enough ranting, lets get the ball on the road!!

Heres some Rukia cosplay from Bleach. I heard that she doesen rly look like Rukia, but who cares, shes still cute XP

Heres some Haruhi pics for Ningyu, that is if that dumbass still checks my blog zzzzz

Now, here are some smoking hot pics of the BEST Maya Natsume cosplayer from Tenjou Tenge I have ever seen

These are some rly gd Yuna songtress cosplays out there.

Rei Ayanami from Evangelion. I'm highly interested in the series now, as I watched the recent movie this year. It was very nice, I liked it. ^^

Heres some elven beauties for your viewing pleasure =)

Nows some Misa Misa pics from Death Note

Nows some Final Fantasy ones!! I'm not reuploading my old pics despite them being superb pics. I'm going for new ones this time.

Lastly: to all ye faithful readers, I need help in identifying which anime this pic came from. The cosplayer sure makes it look interesting haha.

Thats it folks. One heck of an update. I need more pics!!!

2008-07-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

Finished Persona 3 Fes the Answer, no spoilers, but some of the bosses are REAL BITCHES. I hate friking cheap bosses, becos it calls for equally cheap tactics.

List of projects to tackle

1. Okami
2. Chrono Cross
3. Xenosaga Episode 1
4. Xenosaga Episode 2
5. Xenosaga Episode 3
6. Persona 4
7. Final Fantasy XII

LASTLY. PRACTICE DMC3!!!!!!!!! I dun care if the True Style Tournament is over, but I'm gonna practice and practice until my ps2 is spoilt or my sanity snaps.

Interesting way to end a week

2008-07-19T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well, its been an interesting friday, and an EVEN more interesting saturday. Firstly, I once again ponned film soc meeting because I kinda gave up on the entire thing, due to ahem....administrative chaos behind the scenes... so I hung out with ANSAI, the ugly god of ugliness and diwei after school.

It was quite interesting considering its been such a long time since I hung out with the origin of all that is evil, foul smelling and plain ugly. Anyway, our plans to go pool has been dashed since we were still wearing uniforms. Sianz...its been such a long time since I played. The last time was during the UK lit trip where I played in those random hotels with pool facilities, and the challenge was like....meh. LOL, I dun tink I'm suaning am I? Nopez, I'm not.

Ok, first things first, me ansai and diwei went to get bubbletea first, and we were still going on bout the ugliness debacle. Ansai was like "tsk tsk, why you so ugly ah? Ugly to the extent that blah blah blah." I was like "No wat, i got so much charm and charisma, how can I ever be blah blah blah.." We did all this in front of the auntie who just totally died after hearing our convo. LOL, I dun remember what exactly what she said, but she just laughed and said "You guys are very gao xiao"

Next, we spent a good 2-3 hrs at the playground, where me ansai and diwei challenged the spinning wheel. I was friking lousy at it lah, after eating a full long john silver meal, I was ready to puke after 10 secs. Damn weak...I was practically begging ansai to stop spinning and shouting "NONONO, I wanna get off!!" According to diwei, a passing group of rj girls were totally bemused. Wah, can't take it man.

While we attempted to recover from our self-induced ritcher scale 8 vibrations, me and ansai spent the rest of the time singing and challenging Lee Hom and Jay Chou songs, along with other timeless classics from our handphones. Damn fun. even though we didn't technqiually do much or go interesting places, sometimes hanging around with friends in a quiet place is all that we need to enjoy our time.

As time went by, we found ourselves surrounded by young kids using the playground. We were truly stuck in "no man's land" After being demoralized by a bunch of young kids who played the spinning wheel. We decided to take the ultimate dizzy challenge one more time. After the thing finished, I literally collapsed to the ground and ko-ed. Then the kid's father went and said "Look at big brother, He fell down leh, go and help him out" the kid went like "Dun want" Geez, ansai couldn't stop laughing and just said "you got PWNED"

By the time I got home, I was srsly about to puke. Took an early night off to sleep it off. On sat, I met up with my beloved PW group, (srsly I love you guys, I can't ask for better team mates) and finally got our interview done!

The whole afternoon to evening was spent at Cherrie's house collating surveys and typing the transcript for the interview. Halfway we took a break and started a small scale kbox session by watching youtube videos, especially the sad sad jay chou, lee hom and korean mvs. Damn...Cherrie sings damn well, I MUST IMPROVE!!!

Oks, after we finished everything, I hatched a grand plan to scale the mountain hills of Mt Faber. That place always held special significance to me and it has been bout 6 years since I went there. However, after an gruelling 1 hr journey to harbour front, I realised it was like RAINING cats and dogs outside. Geez, wat luck..

Being stuck in vivocity, I decided to pay a visit to ST James Power Station. I was actually quite hesitant on whether I could go in or not, since I thought it prob had some sort of age restriction. When I was still deciding, a guy just came out and squatted at the bushes, and vomited. I was like "Ok....do I rly want to go in?" So i decided to head back, with the guy following me and vomitting along the way as well.

Following that, I ate an EX dinner at some random restaurant, which was round 15 bucks. hahaz, in short its been a rather fruitful way to end off a week. Oh ya, polly's bd coming up on mon. Better remind myself to wish her.

i'm running away..........to do work now. cya.

Surprise surprise...

2008-07-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

I might just get back into the mood of blogging. But anw, decided to post today because I got home really late and have no motivation to do any work. In short, today has been a day of many happenings.

Firstly, our resident genius scoutmaster Matthew Koo (who proclaimed he was going to hike to the match support today at round 1.30 am in the morning) decided to pon school. haha, seeing as he did not answer any calls or messages that we knew of, I assumed he was dead asleep. Seriously, the guy is even worse than me. Sleeps WAY more than me... which is an amazing fact.

Anw, considering that I had to choose between going to Jap Club, RICO practice, or match support. I chose to go for RICO practice for obvious reasons, for I made a promise to go back and help out. I dun intend to break my promise again. The elements plus diwei and "random amin" as quoted from diwei all ponned house meeting to go for an early lunch. Me and yuchen chose to go yoshinoya to eat. Geez, now I wish I have not eaten so much if I bothered to remind myself that I was going gym later with yanwei.

Anyways, stoned around in the library for a while with yanwei and amin. While the 2 of them were browsing through archery books, I was reading some english chess guide book. Later I went for the first time to Bishan gym just next to the swimming complex. I liked the treadmills more than the yio chu kang. Performed better than I do the last time. The rest of the machines were...ok I guess.

Left earlier to go back to co prac. though I ended 1 and a half hours late. decided to pass out the last of our pw surveys anyway, got them all done in a flash. haiz...still have to collate the results though. Anw, today was Eugene's birthday as well!! as well as Hong Bo's!!! haha, quite funny. Cytam asked me to play the happy birthday song on the yangqin, but I dun know the friking notes!! so I opted to sing falsetto instead. muhahaha!! there was even a cake for eugene, haha

Oh ya, we decided to shift all the instruments from ri back to rjc, but due to a SEVERE lack of manpower, around 8 people had the horrendous task of bringing back a total of 3 yangqins, few liuqins and zhongruans, plus scores and stands. The cello section like totally abandoned us lol. Being somewat exhausted from gym, I could barely carry back the yangqins with the combined effort of the rest. Even the security guard had to help us abit to carry it down the stairs. He told us to just call a taxi, but being the price concious people that we are, we chose to rely on manual brute force lol. Ran into chermaine at the canteen when we were shifting instruments back, haha seemed like she planned on going for the orientation performance as well. Can't believe after 4 years, I'm still doing the same old shit. haha but still it brought back old memories of teamwork and comradeship.

After that, we basically stoned around the raja block 1st floor at the benches as the huqin section were waiting to perform at the RI orientation performance. I was waiting around too, as I had to wait for RJCO to finish practicing at 7 before I could scour the room for my missing pencil box. (Which I ultimately did not check today) If its not there.... then damn. I lost bout stationery with up to 8 years of history with me... my current available pencil boxes are all like shit..

back to stoning, we stoned for close to 1 and 1/2 hrs. Broke up the monotony by playing all sorts of random games with Kwang Yi, Cytam, Rui Jun and yiheng. We played "ma bu" where we all engaged in a stupid test of endurance, plus pepsi cola, where our objective was to step on the other's shoe within a set amount of steps. I won the first round but lost the 2nd haha.

Doing "ma bu"

ok, when it was round 8.30 i tink, we all went to perform. we were the background music for a certain part of a overarching play by the raffles players. We played Ju Hua Tai, one of my fav songs by Jay Chou. It basically consisted of only the erhus plus the uber pro Kwang Yi at the keyboard. I requested to sing, and everyone said ok, only Sng Zheng said no.... haiz. wasted. In the end i didn't sing after all. Sad...

So after the performance, me, Kwang Yi, Dong Heng and Rui Jun teamed up to carry cytam into the toilet and attempted to dump him into the sink. Wah... I never knew cytam could scream like that. It was freaking high and loud, totally unexpected from someone like cytam hahaha. In the words of cytam, theres only 1 word to describe his situation : "GANGRAPE!!!" Lol

Went out after that to eat something light at macs, lol, everyone couldn't stop teasing cytam bout him and his gf. haha, although they might have gone a tad bit overboard. But oh well, been a rly fun day. Hanging around with old friends from CO really makes me miss the close, tight knit connection we all shared as Co members. We were all comrades together who shared fun and pain together. haiz...wheres that team spirit that I seek in JC?

Anw, been tinking alot these days. Been rather down as well, over certain matters. But i decided. I had enough of this. No matter what happened, everythings bound to pass someday, and remain in the past. theres rly no point in letting it affect me so much. I decided to move on. True, I will always look back with some regret, but I am still moving on. Yanwei told me today when he sensed that I was abit down, that theres no point looking at the past when you can't change it. Just do things that you want to do, answer to nothing back your sense of morality and rightness. I think that no matter what, I will look back with some form of wistfulness and regret, but still I'm moving on.

That I swear, I will make it into a reality.

Nitez

If Life was.....

2008-07-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

yoiz. damn, i'm srsly too bored. motivation from polly to update my blog doesen help things man. Okok, been meaning to discuss this for a long time already. But some of my close friends would know of my obsessive love for a PS2 game called Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3.

Put it simply, it is a dating sim like game with rpg combat elements. The cool thing is that both seemingly unrelated sections of battling monsters or socializing with friends at school are not mutually exclusive. What you do, or say to a particular person has wide profound effects on how you perform in combat. This is explained by your character's ability to pick up a gun, point it at his head and goes BANG!! A creature ranging from beautiful angels to horrific monsters emerge from the blue shards that represent your mind and whacks monsters for you.

That ability is called persona, and the people you talk to and get to know well will help you develop this skill. Also one main reason why only the main character can have multiple personas is because of his ability to interact and form bonds with all kinds of people, hence he has many personalities in a sense.

Now... IF life was like Persona 3, you can get to become good friends with anyone solely by picking the best conversation answers HE/SHE wants to hear. Dosen matter if you think that particular person is the scum of the world. Dosen matter if you feel strongly otherwise bout your answer. As long as you pick what that person wants to hear, you're his friend for life.

Sadly, I dun seem to be that kind of person. Which is why my first playthrough in the game, has resulted in so many problematic relationships. I always pick the answer that best reflects my personality while trying to be accommodating towards that person. In the end, relationships grow slowly and are fraught with much friction. Truth be told, while building relationships to strengthen yourself in combat is an excellent game mechanic, I can't help but feel it trivializes friendship on the whole. Most probably, it encourages the development of relationships as nothing more than a tool to help you in combat. In real life, true, there exists people who are able to shift personalities in a blink to click with many different people. However, I'm not.

If life was like Persona 3, you can build or mend a relationship by spamming visits to the shrine, where you make a donation and pray. LOL, sad to say, but if life was like that, things would be so much simpler, yet trivial at the same time. Behold the shrine, man's greatest invention to further social relationships. But oh well, it would make things so much simpler.

Well, Persona 3 does reflect real life to some extent. For example, you are permitted to date up to 5 girls, (one of them a primary school girl, so doesen really count...) but hoho, if you're caught dating another girl or cancelling someone's date to go out with another girl, you're screwed. Takes a long time to regain back trust, but its still doable. And interestingly, you can totally ignore your male friends at school for up to 2 months, and they will still call you and invite you out to lunch and what not. Dao a girl for more than 2 weeks, she starts giving you the cold treatment. This is especially more serious if you're currently dating her. LOL okok, so far everything sounds quite realistic rite? But no, the fact remains that as long as you spend enough time, you can advance all relationships to the max. Its almost like there exists no 3rd party between you and a particular friend. And as long as you apologize, there is no irreparable damage that cannot be solved. lol, somehow dosen really apply to real life does it?

Lastly, Persona 3 ultimately is a game. No matter how realistic it is, it is but a game. In a game, if you did something wrong and made the wrong choice, the option always exists for you to restart your previous save file. Somehow real life dosen give us that luxury does it? -shrugs-

Oh well, i'm just a Persona 3 fanatic who can't stop obsessing over its significance. So ya, nitez

2008-07-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

I'm a Jay Chou, Wang Lee Hom fanatic. Seriously I am. In fact, wth am i doing here? I shld be off playing Okami, Persona 3 or do my usual DMC3 DMD training on my ps2. Or better yet, mug maths?

Wats this update all about? nothing actually. Aside to announce my love for Jay Chou or Lee hom, this post is actually nothing but garbage. But you know wat, who cares. Because this blog is supposed to be dead. So what am I doing here?

Well, considering that Ronald and Psycho have not been updating their blogs, i sincerely hope that they will update so. Ronald's blog used to inspire so much random bouts of uncontrollable laughter in me with his deadpan and SICK sense of humor. Damn, I miss that guy's blog...

But anw, been listening to jay chou's songs ALOT these days. Recorded a few samples of my singing. Most of them are not fit for human ears obviously, unless you have been trained in Lao Zheng's Music School for the Tone-Deaf at the Holy Academy of fine arts. But to be fair, I do most parts ok. Save for the high parts that requires falsetto. Apparently I still can't transition flawlessly from real voice to falsetto.

But who cares, I'm gonna blast my way through the high notes with real voice, I swear. Anw, the kbox session with Sengy and Phengy and HUIFEN (muhahahah) was really quite fun. All of us were totally spamming FIR songs, plus LEE HOM, plus JAY CHOU songs. haha quite fun. We should all go again someday.

oh well, exam results so far has been RLY RLY spectacular. hist was an alltime low score, the lowest in 2 years. But oh well, compared to econs... muhahahaha, I will never forgive myself if i pass lol.

Been doing random stuff recently, like going for a movie marathon with Ronald on Weds, where we watched Zohan and Hancock. Damn, 2 movies where everything seems so sick. Zohan especially, cos it featured the main character banging around 50 60 plus old women and Hancock for having a suggestive sounding title.

Can't say I'm happy being back at school. Sure you get to see old friends and stuff, but a part of me just wishes to be left behind in the hols, where its nothing but mugging mugging mugging and playing playing playing. everythings much simpler that way. oh yea, not to mention the occasional stayovers and mugging session.

anw, thats bout it i guess. heres a classic example of wat crap a post can be when someone has nothing to do at around 12.45 in the nite (i shld say morning) to end off, heres song lyrics not from Kamelot (my head hurts from listening to it all the time) but from jay chou (ok my head also hurts when listening to this lol)

安静 - 周杰伦

只剩下钢琴陪我谈了一天
睡着的大提琴安静的旧旧的
我想你已表现的非常明白
我懂我也知道你没有舍不得

你说你也会难过我不相信
牵着你陪着我也只是曾经
希望他是真的比我还要爱你
我才会逼自己离开

你要我说多难堪我根本不想分开
为什么还要我用微笑来带过
我没有这种天份包容你也接受他
不用担心的太多我会一直好好过

你已经远远离开我也会慢慢走开
为什么我连分开都迁就着你
我真的没有天份安静的没这么快
我会学着放弃你是因为我太爱你

Non-stop listening to this song. MUST sing it PERFECTLY the next time go kbox. Gonna drag ansai along the next time man. sayonara

Update

2008-04-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

Yoiz....sry guys (if there are any out there still visiting this blog >.<), lifes been way too hectic and busy for me to update any single shit. For that reason, I'm taking advantage of today, where I'm a little free to finally finish posting my pics. Haiz...been a long time in coming, fulfilling my final promise to post concert pics.

Me, Shida (imbar J1 super pro dizi player, but never come perform for our concert....zzzzz), Jiemin and Hu Ching (J1 Former Zhongruan player, never help us perform as well >.< Currently the well loved chairman of the Green Earth Club thingie in Rj)

Hu Ching and Diwei

Me and Jowie, who used to be a pending member of the floating body club chaired by teh JIAYU. Hes in photo club as well, hahaz. Glad he came back for our concert ^^

Me and Chun Yin, "super hot sexy manly god", as quoted from various sources haha. Hes also imbar at his instrument, liuqin, currently the vice-chair of RICO.

Me and Gilbert, my sec 3 yangqin junior (time frame from last year: so hes sec 4 now, for those who flail at maths like me....) Haiz

The talented yangqin section, changing professions and becoming zhongruan players!! It goes without question that something IMPORTANT is missing... or should i say "someone" Hmmmmmmmm

Ahhhh there...so much more better rite? Cos of a certain ahem someone LOL. okok lah, I abit the ego. But anyway, yangqin section rly has imbar skillz man.

Going nuts lol, but the picture is marred by the cameraman. GEEZ, this pic is RLY unclear if you view it at full size.... haiz...wat a great pic wasted. But then again, no one can use my camera properly save for my dad who has aforementioned steady hands that rival and pwn tripods.

An even more blurry shot, but the lesser of the other 5 pics we attempted. (tells you how bad the cameraman was....I tink it was eugene lol)

Tilt your heads for this 1 folks, cos its me and Eugene (current tanbo sectional leader, my successor) with our eternally loved RICO mascot, Jiayu!!

Jun Sean, being melancholic and reflective. hahaz, hes a serious guy, but not without a great sense of humour. Check out the tanbo nonsense videos for his coughhighlycoughcreativecough actions.

Tanbo members hard at work!! practicing and practicing just before the nite concert. On the other hand, I was slacking around and playing on Yong Kiam's PSP with Jonathan haha.

Random shot of the resting room, where everyone was like doing random stuff. Jiemin "trying" to look cool by siting on the only chair in the middle of the room. Yong Sheng, (the dizi guy) was hard at work practicing. the chuiguan section from top center to bottom right were generally playing cards, the girls from rgs at the top right corner were doing lao zheng knows wat, jonathan was playing yang kiam's psp as I was busy taking random shots.

Me and Hong Bo, current sectional leader of huqin. For once, the picture actually looks sharp and clear!!!

Me and Eugene, (dunno why I was so happy at that time, I smile rather widely zzzzz) my successor to the position of tanbo sectional leader. Good luck to him this year!!

Me, Kwang Yi and Jun Yu, from left. Haiz, both of them are both super pro in pipa, but most importantly, they are ALSO uber pro in other instruments like dizi and guzheng. RESPECT.

Me and Boyi, another super pro at erhu and the like. He was the previous year's student conductor.

Me and the HOLY Genial. When I was but a puny little sec 1, he towered over me as my yangqin sec 4 senior. Now whos towering who?? LOL hahaz, not only was he a super funny guy, and one of the greatest slackers I ever knew, he was a good and kind senior. I still remember the first song he taught me man, it was "Ba He" literally meaning "pulling the river" Lol, it was kinda a crappy song, but hey I still remember it. Genial was always my fav senior, as he kinda always showed favourtism for me ^^ Rly glad that he was able to come back to help out. Oh yeah, he was the grandmaster of the yangqin section's awesome faking skillzs. In his words, "faking skillzs are among the highest and most difficult art" LOL

The entire zhongruan section plus a few who helped out in their ensemble piece, as 1 big happy family!! it was really a pity, as I wanted tanbo to take 1 whole group picture before we left. But we were forced to leave as the teachers kept shouting staying for 5 mins more would result in us paying 2k more. SCH is rly money grabbers man geez...

FINALLY, we have come to the last concert picture. Its fitting that it should end with a picture of the IMBAR yangqin section with members from the past generations. Me, Gilbert, Yong Jun, and Jonathan and GENIAL. All 1 happy and united section. That day was really awesome man...but all good things have to end...and we wonder if we could ever reunite on the same stage once more... haiz

Thats it then, my final promise to my blog: fulfilled. Whether I update my blog from here, really depends on many things man... hahaz, but if ya have time, you could always check this blog out. You might be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised if you actually find updates ^^.

Ja ne. Sayonara!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yoiz

2008-04-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

I know....its been a long time since i updated... yeahyeah, people screwing me left and right over the non-existent concert pics, I'm like UBER PISSED OFF with my non-existent "Spring of Life" Concert DVD, that apparently requires 100 people to pay at the price at $30 before the Singapore Conference Hall people decide to mass produce.

Geez, I understand that we face inelastic price demand for the DVD, hence they can feel free to raise prices, as they maintain an monopoly and total control over the production of concerts at their conference hall. I mean sure, quantity demand would fall for sure, but as we have inelastic demand for the concert DVD, increasing the price would increase total revenue and thus correspondingly an increase in profits.
To sum up=they dun get a shit about consumer feelings...

Haiz, now I got a shit job of finding 98 other people who are willing and able to pay the price $30 bucks...

But forget the above rant, I move on to a significantly pressing problem with my blog. That of updates, and of concert pics. Firstly, I'm sorta restricted in my usage of computer these days due to ahem.. parental concerns over my grades. Additionally, I dun find too much stuff to talk bout anyway. I dun really want my posts to be filled with random boring stuff about my life (which is kinda boring as well), nor emo posts for the epic win.

So ya, the only thing left is concert pics. and YES!!!!!!!! the much awaited concert pics are FINALLY UPPPPPPP. Geez, they are after all the only things stopping me from ending my pitifully short blog career. So I shld be feeling QUITE happy after this post. Cos theres no more moral obligations to update anymore ^_^ and yes, I will be including running commentary on most of the pictures, something I wanted to do for the grad nite pics, but ultimately gave up....

So....without further ado..... Valance Kyre presents to you: "Spring of Life"!! Make some noise!!!!!!!! (yeah, I know. I'm being lame. Who cares, not like anyone actually READS my blog or knows my blog even EXISTS. besides, its probably my last post. I can be as doopid as I want to be)

Hardworking tanbo members practicing before our afternoon performance. I somehow caught Kwangyi in a unglamorous position haha

Me and Dong Heng (sec 2 liuqin player, uber pro) hes an anime freak and writes fanfiction. Woah respect man.

Me and my little yangqin sec 1 junior Jonathan. For some reason I seem to be quite stoned... I think it could be the contacts I was wearing gave me a hard time..

Me and Yuchen doing our classic super sentai pose. Pity there wasn't more people...

One of 2 blurry shots of me and Yuchen, I opted for the lesser of 2 evils and picked these 1. It seems like only my dad can use our camera effectively. his hands are like even more steady than a tripod lor.

Me, Diwei and the HOLY ALMIGHTY LAO ZHENG, who is beyond elemental. Just having him around crushes my shoulders with unmeasurable weights. Wonder why diwei was pointing at me though...

Another happy shot with me and Dong Heng, though I was trying not to emphasize my height difference lol

Diwei and dong heng, lol

Elements UNITE, under the glory that is LAO ZHENG. curse jonathan for being in the background lah, but haiz...who can blame him for wanting to bask in the power that is the Elements and Lao Zheng.

Yuchen, getting pwned by LAO ZHENG, exerting 0.00000001 X ten to the power of Negative Infinity % at 1% of his strength. The agony on his face is obvious... Diwei, dong heng serve as background supporters.

Jiemin, our concertmaster, trying to look cool hahaz

Random shot of the prac room, although Yiheng gave me a kinda strange expression..

Me, Yuchen and Wang Chen Wei, our ex student conductor who is an acknowledged genius who plays 37 instruments and speaks 25 languages (or something close to that figure) Not only is he a musical genius (whose composed works were performed by the Singapore Chinese Orchestra at the age of 18) he is an accomplished programmer as well. But most importantly, he is always humble and ready to help out. We are truly honored that he composed 1 of the songs in our performance and served as our conductor. Words cannot describe my admiration for him.

Me, Diwei and Jun Sean!

haha, yuchen and diwei with chenwei. AGAIN. we are practically hogging to take a pic with him lol

this time, jonathan wants to share the limelight with me. haha being the gd senior that I am, I let him in.

Yuchen up to his usual super sentai tendencies at the reception area 2nd floor with the HUGE drum.

My turn to show my super sentai tendencies as well.

The legendary masters of Chinese Orchestra take their places on the wall of fame.

Me and Tony the slacker! haha no lah, Tony USED to be a slacker, but now hes certainly no ORNAMENT. lol inside joke inside joke.

Yee Siang, Sng Zheng and Tony slacking outside their our free time before the night concert.

Me and Yong Sheng, a dam hardworking and pro dizi player. haha, he looks like hes sleeping.

Me, Yong Kiam and Diwei. Yong Kiam's a nice guy!

Random shot of Yuchen taking a sip of water.

Edmund on the left(super imbar pro cello player, who stays up till midnight at school to practice his cello and clean the CO room. Me and Biran used to hang out together in the CO room as the last to go home, as we were either sweeping the floor or packing instruments or chairs. Good ole days ^_^) playing an intellectual game with Chen Wei. (forgot the game's name XP)

Someone apparently does not want to be seen hehe, but I forgot who this guy was. DAMN

Me and Biran together in a rather solemn pic. Perhaps it was the realization of saying goodbye to RICO for our relatively stoned expressions. Or it could just be my contacts hurting like shit....

2008-03-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Men of the Kyre Line are not cowards
We will stand the test of fate's absolution
We will weather the storm of destiny's treachery
Men of the Kyre Line will hold their ground

"How can we believe in heaven
Human reason counters all
My tears are soul society
My life is just a fragment
Of the universe and more
There must be more than I can see

In the dark we're the same
In the concept of time
We're like a grain in the sand
And we sprout from the flame
As if death was a rain
'Cause we can not understand

How I wish there was a heaven
All for one and one for all
A flawless soul society
Our lives are just a fragment
Of the universe and more
There may be more than we can see"

Note: The verses are lyrics taken from Kamelot's song Soul Society. Was feeling kinda random, but I used these lyrics not cos I was being emo, but because Kamelot ROCKS by default, enuff said :P.

PS: Concert pics will come at a later date. You wanna blame anyone, blame it on blogger. Stupid bugger screwed up my uploading pics, now I lost all motivation to try again.

grad nite pics

2008-02-25T06:39:00.000-08:00

Long time in coming.. finally i bothered to upload, when I'm supposed to do my SEA hist essay. I'm just plain fed up with it. anyway, heres my promised grad nite pics, truly a nite to remember.

But before, I move into grad nite pics, heres some grad ceremony pics.

Ummm....Hi?

2008-01-21T07:08:00.000-08:00

Yo, long time no see. Yeah, I know. I did not update with pics from the concert, nor graduation nite. Blame it on my inherent laziness and need to slack, if ya want. They will be up, If thats the LAST thing I will ever do.

Anyway, nothing too much to say this time, just that JC life is really very.....weird... Haiz...I still can't get used to it after all. My favourite hobby is now running over to Ri library to sleep, but Diwei always says I am being damn anti-social... so ya, I dun know what to say really.

Its not that the people in my class am not worth knowing, its just that I can't bring myself to know them better. Maybe I'm just naturally boring? hahahaha.

Aside from emoing, I actually have plans to do something for this week. Believe it or not, I'm seriously considering trying out for the DMC3 True Style Tournament 3. And I know as well as anyone that even the so called "noobs" who joined can pwn me in terms of jump cancelling, innovative combos, or just plain stylish flair. So I dun really know whether I shld join or not.

The locations' in a cramped little bar, where movement and space are heavily constrained, its also the kind of place I might find myself dying a lot. Considering that people actually can breeze past these places and look cool in the meantime, I am fighting a battle just to survive... so I dun really know. THe submission's date is still a mystery to me....

Haiz...I must seem damn sad... nothing but gaming going on in my mind nowadays... but you can say its probably the only thing that keeps me sane nowadays.

Drats, I must seem so emo. Well ya, what a way to start a new post for the year...

Btw, After posting the pics of my graduation and Co concert, I will probably stop blogging for gd. JC life seriously warps my entire day into shambles. "probably" being the key word. If I find myself seriously damn bored, I might post a few random comments here and there, but I remain certain that blogging is something I must move on from. I have never poured my heart out on blogs; my deepest secrets and feelings will always exist in a place, where no one, perhaps not even family can touch.

To those that have been following this blog throughout last year, thanks for your comments on the tagbox, which has brought life into it, instead of the gloom I harbor usually. its glad to see that ningyu has finally stopped his last tag fetish, though sad to see that ronald has not been updating his blog; his posts are always varied and funny.

So ya, cya around blog...someday, somewhere in the sky, may we meet again?

BB

RICO Concert Reflections

2007-12-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, on the 14th of December, marked my final and yet perhaps the most meaningful concert I ever had with RICO. Held as a tribute to our dearly beloved late conductor Mr Yeo, who passed away this year, we performed songs either arranged or composed by him. Now that the concert is over, I have experienced 2 wildly different feelings, that of both joy and sadness. In preparing for this concert, RICO had demonstrated the very best of our individual qualities, that of unflinching motivation and passion, and unquestioned loyalty and dedication to the success of this concert. On the other hand, it signaled that end of something special, something we would always remember as we move on through our separate yet closely connected lives.

While in busy preparations for this concert, I find myself wondering. As the my last concert together with RICO, and also my last year in RI, what have I actually left behind? What have I actually done to help RICO? Would I leave a legacy behind? Would people actually remember me at all? Looking at admired seniors like Boyi, Mingquan, Ackerly, Bing Liang, Jason, and even people from Zongjin's batch like Kia Hon, I find myself filled with the utmost respect for them and their unwavering support for RICO even though they have long left RICO. When Zongjin's batch is mentioned, perhaps everyone would remember them as the strongest and most charismatic batch of leaders RICO ever had; everyone would remember them as legends, examples for new leaders to be compared against. When Boyi's batch is mentioned, who can neglect to mention the many motivational speeches they have had, the many successful activities they have directed?

So what about my batch? It seems vainglorious for me to expect later batches to remember every single 1 of us, but what I really want to know is that whether people would actually recall what we have done for RICO, or even acknowledge our efforts. Because, truth be told, and I admit it myself, our batch of leaders does not seem particularly memorable when held up to the memory of our legendary seniors. Still, I can't help but wonder, if anyone would perhaps remember me, not as a tanbo SL, not as a senior yangqin player, but perhaps a good friend, or a dependable senior?

But enough on these personal thoughts, details of our concert should be placed on a higher importance. Here follows a personal (though limited) account of the day of our concert:

We reported at RJCO room at around 7.45, which meant I had to wake up at around 6, because I had to take quick bath and had to endure 15 mins of personal torture, as my father helped me wear my contact lens. Truthfully, it was my fault as my parents had advised me against wearing contacts, as I was still unused to them and would be wearing them throughout the day. I insisted however, so I ended at most of the time at the concert hall with burning eyes.

Anyway, most people were still stoning in the CO room, waiting for the buses and truck to arrive. For my part, I was frantically borrowing tuners and trying to ensure every last note was pitch perfect on my yangqin (Though past experience had indicated that it was utterly immpossible)

After the truck was locked and loaded, it was time for us to go on the buses. I sat beside Jonathan, my yangqin sec 1 junior. As always, he proved to be a nice contrast to the always active Yong Jun playing Jay Chou songs on his handphone 1 seat behind. The rest of the journey was spent singing Jay Chou songs together with Yong Jun and Jonathan, though we all failed miserably to a certain degree.

We reached SCH finally, much to our relief, I think Yong Jun was running out of good Jay Chou songs to sing along anyway. Most people were engrossed with watching the "A Nite in Beijing" concert performance by SCO on the TV underneath the stairs, me included. I was so engrossed that I even forgot to bring my yangqin down from the truck. Thanks to the people who helped me shift it directly to the concert hall.

Practice was decent, though I missed a significant portion of it. Genial, (when I was in sec 1, he was in sec 4), my yangqin senior, legendary self-proclaimed slacker (his last words to RICO were like, Dun be a slacker like me, otherwise end up like me) finally showed up in his uber cool outfit complete with silver tie. (Damn, I wanna wear that tie...) The reason why I missed so much of the rehearsal was because I had to settle stuff with the IT department of SCH, and when and how to play my video and powerpoint during the concert.

Which reminds me, the video was an absolute headache for me to do. Though me and Yuchen had adamantly stated it was to be a part of the concert since the beginning, honestly speaking, I had more or less given up on the video due to mounting production problems and lack of good pictures. However, a talk with Mr Lim, our conductor, reminded me of my initial promise and wish to make this concert a special event, perhaps even once-in-a-lifetime experience. Thus began my project. I finished the first version of the video in roughly 1 day, it was then that I realized that it was not such an difficult task after all the materials have been prepared and I have committed myself to the project. I rendered the video with Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0, thanks to GodEmperor, who introduced me to its rendering and editing capabilities. In retrospect, I think I could have never finished the video without it. For the once time in my life, I had to use up to 45 titles, and 7 video slots playing at the same time.

For the original version, I had used a soft peaceful and inspirational piano piece by S.E.Ns, my favourite Japanese New Age Band. Mr Lim had worried about copyrighted content, and so suggested me to ask Chen Wei to record a piano version of Xin Xian. Music was not the only problem I faced, Mr Sunny Chong and Ms Lim had many numerous changes to the wordings and picture and mood changes to the video. Also, on the day before the concert itself, Ms Lim requested for me to double the video length. It was simply a crazy request, because even if I could go without sleep, I did not have the necessary materials to lengthen the video. I told her flat to leave the video as it as. Luckily she understood my situation and told me to make the minor changes as I saw fit. As it turned out, the final and fourth version of the video, was officially completed at 12 midnight exactly, though codec and exporting problems took up to 1.30 to resolve.

Anyway back to concert rehearsal, I was editing the powerpoint description of Ji Liu (to be played during the song) with Mr sunny chong and Ms Lim in the audience seats. The orchestra was practicing Lai Fo Shi at the time, I thought it sounded quite nice.
I did not finish the editing as Mr Lim called me to play the 3rd movement of Ji Liu, of which I am playing a solo at the beginning. It was then that I discovered a particular note had gone horribly wrong, and no amount of tuning would solve the problem, the note was even affecting other notes!

Then came the full run, where the MCs introduced our concert to my utmost horror. Not only were their tones over dramatic, they had the guts to mention my name.... I downright wanted to die back then.. Edmund was giving me funny looks (as in hahaha kind of funny), while Genial was obviously trying not to laugh. Biran was also smiling at me.... sigh....

We went for lunch after that, some of us changing to concert attire first. The audience for the afternnon show were expected to be low, for most of our audience would be coming at night, so I did not feel too nervous. Before we went out to the stage, the yangqin setion were having a funny conversation with each other. A part of me was glad that the rest of my section could communicate and talk freely to Genial, whom they had never met. We shared many funny moments, where the rest discovered who taught me faking skills which I had taught to the rest of them. Yong Jun was like worshipping Genial as the "Zhu Shi Ye" the grand teacher of faking skills. Genial was like going "Oi, who says faking is not a skill? Even when you wanna fake, you need to fake convincingly." and he launched into the various techniques of taking. LOL.

Anyway Genial shared with us many funny stories, like how when he was performing at SCH with Chen Wei. Chen Wei was conducting his maiden composed piece, when he incidentally dropped his baton on Genial's yangqin with a loud bang. Everyone was laughing helplessly, including the orchestra abd the audience. Lolz

anyway, the audience in the afternoon was pretty apathetic, most of them not really understanding or seeing the point of the concert. Some minor screwups were there, where the stage hands did not remember to remove the four chairs for Ji Liu. There was also a part during Huan Xin, that Chun Yin went missing in action, while the rest of us were on stage. I even mouthed silently to Dong Heng and Jeremy, "Wheres Chun Yin". Having waited a while, I had no choice but to signal Patrick to start. Chun Yin picked that moment to burst onto stage, looking flustered. haiz. talk about bad timing. In the end Huan Xin....was ok.... though I screwed up a few parts by leading tanbo a bit wrongly... In all, the audience did not encore, and we did not perform it, and left it as that. The real show would be the night performance.

Afterwards, Mr Lim called everyone together for a short but motivational speech. Basically he wanted to thank everyone for our hard work, and our progress throughout these months have been very encouraging. He told us not to practice anymore but to relax for the night concert. Well I wanted to do my tuning, because despite Genial and my efforts' the note was still as screwed as ever. It happened to be the note G.
When I complained to my friends about it, it sounded a bit...wrong...

Me: Walao, my yangqin suddenly got a screwed up note lah, affected the entire thing. I dun know what the hell happened to my G string
*silence*
Me: Nononono, I did not mean it that way!!!
Friend: ohhhh...are you trying to tell us something???

Haiz...

Anyway, the night performance was way better than the afternoon, everyone was performing their absolute best. The first 2 songs, Qing nian and jia jia le, were quite upbeat and energetic, providing a good start to the concert. I heard that the huai zhuan wu qu, ensemble by zhongruan was quite successful with quite a number of them bearing smiles when they came backstage. Then it was time for huan xin, at first this time, it seemed that nothing could go wrong. Chun Yin was not MIA. but?? Dong Heng disappeared this time. I chose to wait longer for a while, and sure enough Dong Heng came bursting in mirror image of chun yin. Then I signalled Patrick to start. Overall, Huan Xin was quite fun, without major mistakes. It was also perhaps the only time I was leading tanbo in a piece. Sad isn't it? haha

Disaster struck at Lai Fo Shi... the rest of the orchestra had re-entered, and Jiemin stood up and raised his hand. Mistaking his intentions, I immediately stood bolt upright before realising I was the only person stupid enough to do so. Jiemin had a WTF expression on his face and seemed inches away from giving me a WTF gesture... Embarassed, I slunk down into my seat and covered my face in despair. Sng Zheng was like saying.."its ok.."

Lai Fo Shi went smoothly, perhaps one of our best times performing it. Though Suona had its usual problems, everyone was satisfied with the performance, except me. I was in complete depression 3/4 of the time. It was intermission,where quite some number of people gave me words of encouragement and told me to forget about it. Many thanks to Genial, who threw a brotherly arm around my shoulders the entire time during intermission and tried to calm me down by encouraging me... and telling me how he also always used to screw up performances as well in his typical funny tone.

I decided that I desperately needed a glass of water to calm my nerves, and even though the 3rd bell had rung, Genial dashed off to the reception area to get me a bottle of water. Even Kia Hon stopped by and said, "hey wenqiang, relax lah, you look like so stressed up the entire day" I could only manage a weak laugh as Genial told him I was fine. I was quite nervous at this time, not only because of upcoming pieces and I screwed up in Lai Fo Shi with my stupid stunt, but also because my video was being showed to Mr Yeo's family. Part of me really hoped that I have done a ok job. Genial and the rest of yangqin section again noted my state of nervousness, and told me to calm down..

Intermission came and went, as the lights dimmed and the MCs announced that they were presenting a video tribute to Mr Yeo created by me, my palms were steadily getting sweaty and trembling. As the video played, my heart was punding so furiously, it seemed as though I could hardly breathe at all. I tried hard to look away from the screen, telling myself that I had already seen it a thousand times, only to fail when I turned back and saw my work on a screen a thousand times larger than the 1 I have at home.

As Chen Wei took the conductor's baton, my trembling grew worse and worse, untill I could barely hit the right notes. I dun really understand, I have been performing in many concerts, and yet i never really grew so nervous before, not even in SYF I think. The 2 vocal songs, The moon represents my heart and Xiao Cheng Gu Shi, were VERY nice. Miss Li Hua was our guest singer, and she made a very touching speech about Mr Yeo addressed to his family. My mother said, at 1 point in time, she was crying and the audience were applauding to encourage her.

Gan Huai went smoothly, because the notes were quite easy, and the main highlight for the 4 guest performers and the vocalists. The real star of the show was Ji Liu, our last song. The first 3 movements features yangqin heavily at the beginning, and I was the only 1 playing because Mr Lim feels that the volume of 1 yangqin was enough. I was glad to say that my performance was quite ok, with no huge mistakes. As we approached the climax of the 2nd movement, it sent shivers down my spine at the epicness of the piece. That was the movement where I was truly submerged in the spirit of the song, in a poetic sense, where all of us played our hearts out. The 3rd movement was performed spectacularly by our percussion section with no mistakes.

As we came to the fourth movement, part of me was thinking, "This is it, the last song we will be playing together as an orchestra for me. After this, it would be goodbye" Though we had invitied a singer to sing the lyrics of Zhuan Deng, I felt that it was too...pop. and did not fit the mood of the song, which was supposed to be solemn. But still the overall effect was quite nice, when Mr Lim sang together with him. We ended the song with a rousing finish, where the applause from the audience became thunderous. Everyone thought it was finally over, before Mr Lim came out for the encore.

To our surprise, it was not Jia Jia Le, as we all thought, but rather Qing Nian. This time was very different from the beginning. Mr Lim conducted at a much faster speed, and invited, in his own humorous way, the audience to clap along. At the quiet parts featuring the cello and bass, he put a finger to his lips and waved for the audience to quiet down.. As we moved on, he indicated for the audience to clap again. As we moved to the last part of the song, he suddenly stopped, and waved at the audience to stop as well... After those 3 seconds of utter silence, where everyone was looking at him for instructions, he smiled and continued the finisher of the song. Needless to say, the audience had never clapped louder, and it was finally the end of the concert...

Packing up was a hasty affair, as Mr Sunny Chong and Ms Lim kept threatening that staying for 5 mins longer would result in us paying 5000 more. Damn!! and I had wanted the whole tanbo to take 1 last photo together...

And so, my term at RICO has ended, I have come to say goodbye to the very CCA I had dedicated myself to for 4 entire years. Throughout these years, I have learnt many things, and have made many great friends. The vigilance and the hard work of the juniors never cease to amaze me, while the loyalty and dedication of my senior have always left me awestruck. This would be indeed a night to remember, for life.

Before I end off this rambling post, I would like to thank the following people in Tanbo:

Liuqin
Chun Yin: You have always inspired me with your leadership and dedication to RICO, and to tanbo. Though we may not know each other as well as I would like, never doubt that I will always be proud to have a junior like you. It is because of your outstanding leadership that I have always trusted tanbo to be in good hands everytime we practice in separate venues. Though your current position may not be exactly what you wanted, never forget that every single member in RICO can contribute in his own way. Gd luck for next year, and never forget that should you ever require my services, you can always contact me.

Jeremy: haha, Jeremy. We might not know each other that well, but your personality has always been humorous and fun to be with. Your level of preparedness and vocal ability has always astonished me. As usual, gd luck for the next year, I have no doubt of your ability to lead. Work hard on your skills in your instrument!

Dong Heng: Dong Heng, sometimes I always wished I was as pro as you in my instrument as you were in sec 1. I have always admired your musical ability and hope to see you keep on progressing both musically and otherwise. haha, we can always talk about anime like gunslinger girl or tsubasa, on MSN if ya like. Provided I download them first of course. lolz

Jia Yu: Ah our 24hr entertainment officer, the life and joy of tanbo, as well as our indomitable mascot. Never stop smiling and causing trouble (haha, I can say that because I have left RICO), keep putting a smile on everyone's faces, including yours. I almost feel like hiring you as the official photographer of tanbo to keep me updated over the next few years. Haiz

Yangqin (Full Internal Self Government)
Gilbert: Gilbert, firstly, I must apologize for all those hard years I have put you through under me. I know, I must have seemed cruel and unfeeling in my teaching. What I really wanted was to equip you with adequate skills to serve as a teacher to our juniors. Now, I sincerely apologize for all those years of scolding and correction I have subjected you to, as I leave, I still hope to maintain relationships with yangqin as well. Do pay attention to the needs of our junior, while not neglecting your own skills.

Yong Jun: Well I know that you are leaving half-way next year, so I can only say safe journeys and wish you well in whatever your life takes you through. Though it was hard teaching you, because you seemed all over the place haha, those times that you actually listened to my instructions, was some really nice times lolz. Thanks for reminding me many times of my own sucky chinese standards so many times in the past, be sure to turn that same wit on the people of Shanghai as well, k?

Jonathan: To be honest, your coming was 1 of the best things that happened to me in RICO. Thanks for tagging along with me all the time, and bearing with me and Yong Jun's horrendous singing while trying to sing along at the same time. Though cheeky most of the time, you at least paid attention to what I said and tried your best to learn them. haha, hope you dun suffer short term memory loss as you did in my presence next year. And remember to take note of your physical strength as well, otherwise I will come back and pump you again. muhahahaha. So its goodbye now, my favourite cute little Jonathan.

Pipa
Eugene: Haha, Hi new tanbo SL. Needless to say, I hope you will do well as my successor. haha never lose that carefree attitude, though you might wanna make sure you take attendance regularly, psst, tell you a secret, I stopped taking attendance since 6 months ago. haha so yeah. Anyway, please help me take care of the yangqin section, I know you are practicing in different venues, but just help me look out for them once in a while k?

Kwang Yi: How can I forget my proest pipa player? haha, thanks for your strong support in tanbo this year, I really hope that you will continue to serve as a mentor and insipration to other people in Tanbo. Thanks for volunteering yourself in the Tanbo Nosense Videos, if possible keep that a annual tradition for tanbo to post their interesting quirks via pictures or video. Be sure to invite me along as well. I never got to finish my ultra speed huan xin anyway...haha, gd luck for next year.

Zhongruan
Jun Sean: Jun Sean, my impression of you has always been you being serious, but not without a great sense of humour. Be sure to balance that aspect as you take further leadership roles be it in RICO or as a prefect. Thanks for a job well done for the logistics for this concert. Even though there have been problems, that there were no screw-ups during the concert stands as inrefutable proof of your leadership. Gd luck for next year, and dun forget to help out wherever you can.

Jowie Koh: haha, I'm not sure if you are still a pending member of the floating body club, of which jiayu (sec 4) is the current president. But the fact that you turned up for our concert, is very hopeful that you will continue to stick with tanbo through thick or thin. Gd luck with your photography skills as well as zhongruan skills as well.

Jia Huang: You and Chang Cheng are among the most hardworking people I have ever known in tanbo. Though you may not say much or participate in discussions that actively, you are always silently helping RICO by doing your part and relentlessly practicing. Though we may not know each other very well, I hope that you will continue to work hard and help RICO in your own silent, yet noble way.

Chang Cheng: As stated before, I feel extremely proud of you and Jia Huang, for your unswerving support and dedication to RICO. The mastering of a song is always your first priority and you achieve it by continuous, even maniacal training. I have no doubt that in the years to come, you will be a solid pillar of support for RICO

And finally: to all in tanbo I have neglected to mention, together with all the rest of the sections in RICO, plus our seniors and friends from RGS who came down to help out.

To Tanbo: Yes...its been a grueling year for all of us. Really feel grateful for you guys, for bearing with my nosense actions, stupid initiatives like pushups or dumb essays or funny conducting skills. I feel regretful that I have not know most of you that well enough due to yangqin section practicing in other venues. Seriously... thank you all for putting up with me, and listening to me even though most of you dun really know me. Please continue to support Eugene as your SL, and Chun Yin and Jeremy as your vice-chairs. Show the entire world why Tanbo is THE BEST of all the sections!!!!!!!!! ROCK ON!!! (Quoted from...I think ChunYin hahaha)

As I mentioned at the head of this seriously long post, I wondered what kind of legacy I would leave behind, who would actually remember me... Well, I have come to the conclusion, it does not matter whether I do leave a legacy behind, it does not really matter if people would remember me for what I have done. The fact is that, we shared happy and wonderful times together as a group, as a team. We have trained together and become a single cohesive group. That...is enough.

I am contented with that....

PS: Pictures will come at a later date.

2007-12-16T08:15:00.000-08:00

Valance
Val
Valdemir
Vale
Valkerin

Valance, Val, Valdemir, Vale and Valrin Kyre were walking on a road 1 day...
Valance fell down and cried, why is no one helping me? Life sucks man
Val says, I got a business appointment and all, really big deal, can't help pathetic people like you.
Valdemir says, Ahhhh, everyone has a special destiny after all, your falling down is no coincidence, it was meant to be and anyone helping you would be in violation of the fundamental rules of fate...
Vale says, its none of my business, so could you get your sorry butt out of the way and die somewhere else.
Valrin says, LOL you deserve it. Im not helping you up because I dun feel like it. Whats the matter, wanna fight izzit???!!!

Then Valde comes along and says, BOYS how can you behave in this manner?

All: Whoops. GG

Valde says, next time your brother falls, be sure to give him a few hard steps on the face, maybe he will become handsomer...like me.

All: So thats how dad became SO handsome....

Authors note: yeah I know, its lame, its not funny (not meant to be), just feeling bored and wondered what kind of crap can I type in a semi-conscious state...........Yawn....

What am I doing here???

2007-12-11T05:31:00.000-08:00

Eh...I'm surprised at myself. Why am i updating this blog instead of playing as I usually do? ......I must be bored....

Anyway, many thanks to Lord Ronald for naming my blog the 2nd best blog of year 2007. *Cue the amazing applause please* Well his blog shld have been named as well, cos its really quite interesting at times to read.To ronald, yeah I have perhaps gotten back into the habit of blogging, how can you be so cruel as to say I never update at all *sobs*... Eh...wth, why am I whining? Must have gotten soft...

Well anyway, by this friday, I am officially no longer a member of RICO, I have truly graduated from this sch... Haiz...I know I know.. I shld be posting these thoughts AFTER I finish the concert. (which I will). Besides I got a ton of things I have not done for the concert, like finishing the video, typing the intriduction words for Ji Liu and what now... Why am I always so busy...?

its still kinda funny, for 4 years, RICO has been one of my true homes, where I have many friends I can talk to. Its kinda weird, leaving the CCA I have worked so hard for... Haiz.. I guess its life.

Anyway, I will save my emoing for next week. I shall move on to my main purpose in posting this....wait, I dun have a main point to make. I was just posting for the sake of posting...hence my title.

Well maybe I can move on to my 1 and favourite piece for the RICO concert: Ji Liu.
Why do I like it? Not only because it sounds damn nice, not only because its the definitive composition by Mr Yeo, and not only because it features yangqin heavily (okay, maybe i like it becuse of this) but because.........

Okay i lied, i like it because of all 3 reasons.. hahahahaha

Looking forward to playing it as the finale song, I originally wanted to put matching visuals in synch with the music, but 14 minutes of video is not a job for an amateur video editor like me....but a full-fledged experienced film-maker... I realised that too well..

Anyway, thats it, I will probably be posting again after the concert, which is next week. Untill then, cya ALL Ye Faithful readers...

BB

I'm BACK!!!!!!!!!!!! ONLY FOR A WHILE

2007-12-07T02:55:00.000-08:00

Okokokok, I know..its been too long since i updated (understatment of the century) (yes I know I repeated this sentence for around 2 times)

anyway, heres to show i'm not totally dead these days. Theres too many things that happened in the 2 month long absence. So ya...

Grad nite was damn fun, with plenty of gd laughs and funny photos. Will try to post later (well for those who know me: they understand how late is late in my terms)

Anyway, the reason for my extended absence was because I was too busy playing my borrowed cousin's ps2. Happily, I will probably be getting my own by this year. So that means, I CAN STATMAX every single damn game that ps2 has!!!!

So far, I have finished Kingdom hearts 1 and 2, God of war, Metal Gear Solid and Devil may cry 3, dirge of cerbereus. I'm quite happy with my progress thus far. And I managed to beat sephiroth in both kh 1 and 2. Acheivement man, considering that i was acting under time limits...

Anyway been hardcoring dmc3 this days. The combat system is seriously damn fun, perhaps even better than Ninja Gaiden. And the difficult of Dante must die is seriously WTH... A fully maxed Dante can get killed in about 5-6 hits. and enemies can chain attack you, which means a single hit will stun you, leaving you open to attack by other people.

Seriously, so far after many days of relentless training, (including handicap by using beowulf), I have only ever managed to get SS for mission 2 ONCE. and the pros at dmc3 say its the second easiest mission....

Looking at how people play dmc3, I have come to the conclusion that there are several unique groups of people who play dmc3. let me introduce them:

1. The NOOB
the one who first starts out in dmc3 with limited experience of hack and slash games. He spams the easiest move over and over again, with little understanding of STYLE, or usage of guns or other weapons. Sometimes it might be the opposite with him spamming rocket launcher or guns instead of swords. He can only get his As in normal or hard mode, never to reach the S ranking.

Notable examples: Commander Winter

2. THe Adept
Have played hack and slash games before, understands how to make use of every weapon, but not truly knowing how to maximise its usage. Tends to specialize in his own trusty style and weapons, hardly ever changing them, except to amuse himself or train in other weapons. He might be able to get his SS ranking in his preferred style and weapons, but success in other forms are heavily doubted. With unfamiliar weapons, his ability to perform seamless combos are extremely limited, resulting in a difficult style ranking at times. He does not strictly adhere to the game requirements at all times, instead he completes the missions on his own terms, on his own definition of Stylish combat.

Notable examples: Valance Kyre

3. The Professional

Heavy experience with games of the same genre, excelling in being proficient with all weapons. He is able to use every weapon with a high standard of performance, and seeks extreme challenges such as pwning bosses with a perfect ranking. Though he may not best the adept in terms of standard from the same selected weapon, on average his skills on every devil arms exceed that of the adept. He completes missions in purely professional terms, doing nothing unnessary or flashy but merely does enough such that it fulfills his own personal requirements.

Notable examples: Red Elriza

4. The God-like

Players like Kail or MArty or Brea, who master every single aspect of the game perfectly to the last degree. Be it gun cancelling, jump cancelling, weapon cancelling or style mastering, Perfect SS ranking for every single mission, these players have delved straight into the physics of the game world, pushing the boundaries of what can or cannot be done. Creating the uncountable tutorials or game glitches they have discovered is their immeasurable worth to the NOOB, the ADEPT, and the Professional. Players such as Kail or mArty are able to perform mind boggling stunts such as jump cancelling so fast that the lines between jump and the melee attack are seamlessly blurred. On top of mastering the game to the way the game creators have envisioned, they have also at the same time, created their own brand of stylish combat where their combo videos have insipred people to start playing dmc3 or even to attempt to emulate their results.

Notable examples: Kail, Marty, Brea.

5. The Unconcerned
People who abhorres hack and slash games, and are a complete novice at them.

Notable examples: (I think they know who they are)

So thats it folks, 1 heck of an update if you ask me.

Life after EOYS

2007-10-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well the world has been rather kind to me, because after Eoys have finished, I am still plagued by the same problem every time I want to slack, that is a lack of something to do...

Well, though I'm a week late, heres what happened after my last exam which is history (in which I did not manage to write my last paragraph. GG)

After words in which I discovered a holy message for all students after the exams.

Me and Diwei went to the bishan arcade in J8 to play a few games and squander our well earned money. However I could not bear to waste so much money so after spending 20 dollars, I left the arcade. Needless to say, it was damn fun and entertaining.

My fav game was the ice hockey, in which ended more or less into a tie with diwei. Actually the reason we had a tie, was because I owngoaled myself half the time I was scoring goals. I was trying to get trick shots so that the disc would bounce off the walls and enter the goal. Obviously i did not expect that it was my goal that it entered. LOL

A few days later (I think), went out with yanwei and yuchen to play halo 3. The campaign was quite fun, with an astonishingly large variety of vehicles. We hogged the thing for over 1/2 hr or more. The Brute hammer is OWNAGE man. the weapon can strike and overturn a warthog yanwei was driving towards me, and I can take out any opponent with 2 hits or less. IMBAR. It became my weapon of choice.

Several days following that, diwei, ningyu and yanwei came over my house to play. We played halo on the pc most of time, joining a 16 player map where explosions were everywhere is really fun. except for the shee noobs who use cheap tactics like driving the banshee and crashing into eerything or blowing things up. Of late, I have devised a strategy against shee usage. The first thing I do is to gain control of the banshee, then drive it into the opening o the base. The banshee get never get out of the narrow confines and that is where I wait for people who want to hog the banshee. Its rather amusing to see people get into the banshee and try to fly out, while I take pot shots at them with a shot gun. The smart people try to get out, but they have no chance with a throw 2 grenades at opposite sides and shoot with a shot gun.

Yanwei was the only 1 that stayed overnight though, and the night was quite peaceful. Even though yanwei said he thinks he made some weird noises, I dun remember seeing as the lure of dreams is too attractive to me.

FFVIII mv

2007-10-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to say, just that a sad guy has finished a sad video after a delay of 3 months, involving codec problems, sleepless nights and exams stress.

In gratitude to Ningyu for allowing me to experience the rendering power of adobe premiere, and he being the ff8 freak he is, this is dedicated to him. I hope he enjoys it.

Final Paper

2007-10-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

Well...final paper for me tmr. Which is history. Sigh....As though my mood is not bad enough.

For literature today, not only was the aircon bloody cold, I also had a freaking stomachache during the first hour. I knew I had a bad feeling inside me when I went in, cos I was feeling quite lethargic.

The stupid stomachache had me wasting 20 minutes trying to cope with the pain, I think my essay went out of point near the end.... Sianz.

Dun even talk about bio, I know for certain that I have 10 marks sliced off at Section C. I can't even draw a normal genetic diagram properly, and they want me to work it backwards? Nice work, man....

Anyway, the teacher-in-charge was a real idiot, holding all of us back for what? 15-20 mins? I think she knows that many people finish Eoys today, so she wants to be an idiot and spoil all our fun. Then people started making noise and there was a massive queue for the toilet.

The fun lasted until Tan Lai Lin took the stage and threatened us with a late release. In the meantime, I took the chance to indulge myself in some well-deserved depressed state.

Well, CONGRATS to all those who finish today...some poor idiots just have to have all the luck dun we? Anyway, there was some funny scenes where overjoyed people carried someone out into the field for a brotherly hug session. Heres some photos.

I, on the other hand, can find nothing to be happy about, seeing as I have another exam tmr, and I screwed up bio royally. Serious.

Sianz....

Heres a video before I go off, accurately sums up my woes for tmr. BUT, looking on the bright side, I'm going to arcade after tmr's test, and spend my well-earned 50 bucks on shooting games and drum games. Something to look forward then. Ja Ne.

Reflections

2007-10-06T07:04:00.001-07:00

I know...I should not be posting when examinations are around the corner. But theres been too many things I have been thinking, too many words that I can't say, too many images that I can't express.

Today is my last session with my tuition teacher, no...was. I knew weeks ago that he would not be continuing his tuition sessions with me. He had dropped many hints over this term, before finally informing me last session. As the next year was his last year before he graduated from university and started working in the hospital, he wanted to focus fully on his studies.

Its difficult to say how I feel. Throughout these 4 years in secondary school, I had always relied on other people, external help to help me pull through my schoolwork and tests. In sec 1, I was still having tuition with a tutor who had guided me since primary 4. His name is Lawrence. However, we eventually stopped as the tuition fees were getting too high, and by personal admission, I did not make much progress. Here I would like to stress that the fault lies solely on me, for I have always believed that the performance of a student depends largely on the student himself. You can get the best teachers but if the student has a negative attitude towards learning, ultimately the displacement of learning remains at zero.

Before in sec 1, I was a cripple. I would take no effort to learn, to initiative to study beforehand. It was only during the eve of tests that I opened a textbook. Classroom sessions were good chances to daydream. Assignments would normally wait untill the weekends, where I would pass them all Lawrence on the excuse that "I don't know how to do." Such a mindset is reflected in how my overall GPA for sec 1 was the lowest so far.

My attitude changed in sec 2, just as I changed my tuition teacher to a post-graduate student. His name was Shun Da. However my mindset did not change enough it seems. I was still lazing around and procastinating untill the weekends for my doubts to be solved. I was mugging for exams at the last minute. Shun Da was drastically different from his predecessor. Lacking the many years of experience, he could not answer many of my questions (some which are quite dumb, where the only possible explanation is that "Its just like that) Despite the lack of a strong support, I did not change my behavior too much. It was just a stroke of luck that my GPA for sec 2 was the highest so far. Success can only be attributed to luck.

Then came sec 3, where Shun Da had to leave due to other work commitments. After searching through a tuition agency, my mum informed me that only 1 tuition teacher was willing to teach me, for the rest were terrified of teaching a RI student. That person was Jun Wei. With exceptional results and a RI alumni, he seemed to be the usual tutor with high qualifications.

Later I discovered that Jun Wei was the most "human" out of all my tutors so far. He did not possesed the many years of experience Lawrence had, though he was significantly better at teaching than Shun Da. Gradually, I felt my respect for him growing exponentially. He was not perfect, he could not remember every single topic for maths ever tested, he frequently relied on my notes and textbook to teach me new topics, that he had forgotten. What was so admirable about him was that he was a person who truly exhibited the qualities of a "learner". There were many things that he could not answer me throughout the 2 years of tuition sessions. When he stumbled upon such situations, he was always honest and answered truthfully "I don't know". It reminds me of a quote from the movie "Pursuit of Happiness" starring Will Smith. Will Smith, potraying a character who was being interviewed for a job, famously said, "Now, I'm not going to tell you what I don't know. I don't try to tell you an answer that I can't. But you can bet that I will do my hardest to find that answer."

Jun Wei, was not like others who mugged intensively for the next tuition session, so that they could be better prepared. For all the sesssions, upon encountering newer topics or ones he had forgotten, he can simply read through the notes and deduce and formulate an understanding. He was not one to memorize knowledge, he internalized it.

My mindset began to change, I started to feel ashamed of myself as I had not put in any effort to stand for myself these past 2 years. I was embarassed to show Jun Wei my marks for tests, as I was afraid I would let him down. I think he understood it, and never questioned me further when I avoided the topic.

At this very last session, we found ourselves nothing to do for the last 10 minutes. There seemed to be an uncomfortable silence around us. I tried to change it for going through the physics practice papers. My mother came out at this time to try to persuade Jun Wei to stay on. He was however, adamant on focusing on his own studies, citing a fear that he would be unable to teach me effectively with so many other commitments. My mother relented and left us to ourselves.

For that last 5 minutes, we discussed about my future in RJC. Understanding that I was not a sciences student, but rather a humanities orientated pupil, he encouraged to follow my dreams (reminds me of angeal), that he has confidence that in my pursuit of interests, I would be sure to go far. There was no point in following the herd mentality by taking subjects that you do not like. It would only make you miserable in the ends. He told me not to take education lightly, that the first 3 months in RJC should not be considered as a perfect time to slack, as many oh his friends suffered in a later time. It was important to keep a consistent studying schedule, something I have never bothered to maintain or even set up.

We exchanged gifts. Though the items seemed to be inconsequential, it was the meaning being it that mattered. As I saw him outside the house, I realised that it could be perhaps the last time we would ever see each other.

People may think that I'm being emo, for kicking up a big fuss over tuition teachers. To most people, they are simple hired job who come and go. But to me, I lost more than a hired helper. I have lost a friend, a mentor.

Looking back on my time in RI. Three teacher have come and gone, where during these phase, I have gradually understood more about myself. It may be that we never have the same teachers all the time, we will always be learners, learning from many people in the near future. Perhaps, the time might come where I assume the place of a mentor.

Farewell, it was a pleasure being taught by you....

2007-10-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

"The war may not be over,
Failure may be eternal.
But there are still stories to tell
Rising from the loveless pits of hell"

Project "Fly"

Mugging at 2 in the morning

2007-09-12T08:35:00.003-07:00

This few days I find myself unable to sleep at all. A large part of it was because I felt too emotional affected by Ichigo 100%, during the heartbreaking parts. The only thing I could do is to immerse myself in trigonometry. Amazingly, the questions that I could not do in the afternoon, opened up and showed me its answers in the nite.

2007-09-12T08:35:00.001-07:00

2007-09-12T08:34:00.001-07:00

2007-09-12T08:33:00.001-07:00

2007-09-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

2007-09-10T20:24:00.000-07:00

ok, I know its hard to accept for people. Heck, I know my actions of late had been interpreted as blatant or indirect suaning. But the truth is that, as hard as it is to believe, I have not meant them.

The latest update, true I know it really seems like I'm boasting, but actually its not. I was testing my blogger links (ok, none of you understands wats going on), with some pictures. I think...theres some big misunderstandings.

When something happens to you, you just get excited, perhaps to overzealous standards. If....I have offended anyone with my recent actions, I'm really sorry, I did not mean to hurt you.

You are all my friends, I had not wanted to hurt you, nor do I want to. If you were affected by my recent behaviour, I really deeply apologize for it.

I can't say that I wun ever make this mistake ever, but you can bet I'm sure as hell gonna try to get rid of this tendency.

Gomen, I'm sry..

I'm back

2007-09-06T07:07:00.000-07:00

YOIZ!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm finally back. (Seems like everytim I post, its the same few words.) I know, I know. I have not been updating too regularly (understatment of the century) But after struggling through a hellish 4 weeks of CT doom, and depression over computers, I am back here, alive in a few pieces.

anyway, I am now following the newest craze in town: Rubik Cube, Juggling, and the YOYO. I intend on mastering them to a certain degree before the year is finished. anyway, I'm using my new com rite now. Its freaking fast, fast like a certain chio girl from FFXIII.

its sad to say that I exceeded my budget by at least 300 dollars. Basically, I was at the shop. debating whether i shld go for a 8600 or a 8800. I asked my uncle for his opinion, and he said yes. its ONLY 100 dollars more. so ....yeah the rest followed soon after. I spent 30 dollars more on a casing cos 1 side was transparent and it looked quite cool.

So now. eveyrthing ran without a hitch (If you could call spending 10 hrs on assembling the parts smooth), adobe premiere has NO lag whatsoever, same with many other applications.

Lastly, to all those still reading this blog, thanks for continuing to read it. I know the little updates are furstrating, but hey I do have a life. I will continue to try and update as much as i can, depending on my motivation.

PS: no suaning was intended in this post at all.

Chinese HMT Prelim

2007-08-27T06:59:00.001-07:00

Can't belive I'm actually taking it tmr... thing that bothers me most...is how little the test bothers me. I mean, most people would have been worried sick, throwing up and what now....

I'm back

2007-08-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

Yoiz, I'm finally back. Jut survived a hell of a week 8, where they threw 3 ccts at us, plus a damnable english oral defense. Since Bio was the first cct on monday, lets see what happened?

Before, on fri, sat and sun, I practically had no time to mug, since fri and sun was spent on SS documentary and filming (Anish really has serious sore eys man), sat was spent at yanwei's house. Really wished that I had not gone, as the bio cct was a fiasco...

Ok...so I entered the battlefield, with nothing to lose, save the last remainign dregs of sanity and pride. The MCQ questions were of avergae difficulty, with some questions where I'm unsure of their answers. Section B was a killer man. what the hell is a tolermere? I have never even heard of them!! I feel like a failure. most of the questions were reused from the ten-year series. And I had looked through the series for questions...and I somehow managed to forget the answers... DAMN.

Bonus questions were a bit of a joke. "Does sustainibility preserve earth's resources and make it a cleaner and better world? True or false" ..... Yeah, I'm sure someone is gonna put false there, unless I'm heavily mistaken.

The last answer I wrote for the bio cct was 1 of desperation. As I could not think of the correct answer, I decided to come up with an invention to keep me amused. So the meiosis process includes a "MEGAMONOTETRAHIDIPLOIDHOMOLOGUSMITOCHONDRIA"
The killer cell, where 12 different nucleus exists in the cell of a homologus mitochondria. Tan Lai Lin...will either die laughing or hit the roof in anger...

maths was screwed up. dun feel like talking about it.

Chem was a damn easy cct, namely because....I dun take it. I spent the remianing time before the test in class, asking random questions about chemistry. Diwei was about to hit the roof. Heres a sample:

WQ: Hey how do you seperate hydrogen nitrate oxide from the sodium oxide?
Joel: thats impossible.
WQ: How fast do inert gases turn into waste matter
Joel: thats not tested
WQ: How is DNA related to the eruption of volcanoes.
Nity: You F*****, thats not even tested!

Diwei: Argghhhhh!!! Go away wenqiang. go to the library or something go away!

"when the test is about to start"
Joel: why are you still staying here
Diwei: Get lost lah
Tu Guang: Yeah lah, stop gloating..

and so...chem was a success.

Oral defense was desperate, crazy, omg, wth. I spent like 3 days fretting about it, nearly even crying over it raher than my ccts. Finally I rushed it in a single day up till 2.30 pm on the morning I was supposed to defend. Needless to say, i was in a perpetually bad mood the entire day. The release of the APR did not help things...

Well the oral defense was generally quite gd, in fact better than expected. However I missed a few parts, a few important portions, that link my theme to my achievements. SHIT. Damn you, joel low. who asked you to present without script, make me so scared that I dun dare to look at script!

But really, It was quite well done I think, and I take special pride in my final slide. though my quote seems to be lame, but really I truly believe in it. So ya. thats it, I still need a NEW COM!!!!!!!!!!

I GONNA UPGRADE MY UBER ULTIMATE UNSTOPPABLE ASUS SAD KING MOTHERBOARD GRADE 7 MARK 4 STANCE 8

2007-08-05T02:26:00.000-07:00

YESYESYEYSYES!!!!!!!!!!

I'm really quite happy lolz. my parents just agreed to set up my new com for me, using the asus motherboard we won in a lucky draw. We had thought we were the unluckiest people in the world, getting a top of the line motherboard for free and yet none of my existing parts could be used on it.

true be told, i was half tempted to throw it out of the window; looking at the specificiations was truly a heart-wrecking moment. Quad Core ready, Supreme sound Card included, Double Graphics cards slots. It was like a horrible nightmare. Adobe Premiere lagging on my com is sriously not fun.. imagine spending 2 hrs redering a 20 second clip, and every single thing you changed would mean re-redering the stupid clip AGAIN. How the hell am I supposed to tweak the options if I spend 3 days on a single stupid effect?

I was determined to get a new com for the end of this year. So...thus started a horrible 3 months of waiting, begging, killing and utter mortification of shameless grovelling. my friends laughed at my pitiful state, owning a "sad king motheboard produced by ASUS, world renowned for producing top-end motherboards that support everything that you dun have" I was in a severe depression, thats why i'm writing this post in the first place.

Finally, a day came, when a holy ambassdor from the academy for eletricfied animated gadgets offered a price of 110 bucks for my motherboard. The world turned to light, and I was dazzled at the new hope, at the promise of boundless skies and cerulean seas. and I felt in love....

until my parents said they would be setting up the motherboard after all. sry ningyu, haha.

anyway, i just found out that its cheaper if you build a com yourself, and more practical, cos you can buy exactly the parts you need, without accepting useless bundles that rip your money off for the same specifications...

Lets see: my target com, with 2GB ram, either dual or quad core (combined to be at least 4 Ghz), graphic cards nvidia 8500 and above, 100 GB hard disk space.

2GB RAM: 2 kingston 1GB ram costs around $69. So its $128

quad core: dual core is around 200, so might as well get quad core for 450, makes it future proof for the next 10 years.

Graphics Card: joel has agreed to sell me his 8500 card for 100 dollars. its a deal, but perhaps it might be a bit faulty. assuming that i am buying new, it would be around $250-$300

100GB hard disk: Around $80, though i might not object to more, since hard disk are becoming so cheap.

Monitor, mouse and keyboard, theres no need to change. So the total cost is.........
$950..

Considering that you buy coms with that kind of speficiations for $1699, its a deal all rite.

Pity my new com is going to wait until the next computer fair. at around august or september...

I LIVE IN HOPE!!!!!!!!!!

YESYESYEYSYES!!!!!!!!!

PS3..

2007-08-02T02:29:00.000-07:00

Well its been such a long time since I made a post. (With some people screaming for a post...), its high time that I start out with how the pS3 sucks compared to the 360. NOT.

Firstly I will start out with Ninja Gaiden Sigma. There was this day that I wandered along Ang Mo Kio Hub, checking the stores for a HDMI cable for yanwei's birthday. I saw this PS3 that people were playing. And lo and behold! its the legendary NINJA GAIDEN SIGMA. Anyway, it was a terrbile experience for me.

around 4-5 primary 4-6 kids are taking turns to spam the game. I especially hate this talkative fatso. He thinks hes a master of this game, but I notice that he keeps on getting pwned by both Alma and Nicharros, 2 of the game's hardest battles. Admitedely, I have difficulty facing them as well, but it was NORMAL MODE. Those hits are nothing but tiny pricks when compared to master ninja, even very hard. And even if you can't beat them, lose with style! At least deplete their heath to around 1/2 before dying.

and wat did that idiot do? Oh, he spammed Ninpo and elixirs for Ninpo, never even noticing that they keep missing and do pathetic damage. and he does not even know that shaking the controller would increase the damage. Geez.

He does not understand no shit about ultimate techniques. His style, when described in a very forgiving manner, is simply plain damn and lame. Imagine taking delight at killing an enemy with shurkiens.. and I dun mean the big big windmill shuriken or the one that blows up... he keeps up the shooting for like 10 min, before the enemy finally died of boredom... For every single action he did, cool or disastrous, kept on shouting about how he pwns the rest of the kids there. (Yeah sure, who you trying to compare with? a cockroach?)

yeah, there was a part of me that had just a tiny bit of respect for him. At least he KNEW where to go, right? wrong. One thing that has been changed in Sigma is that, many puzzles are simply removed, so its basically non-stop action all the way. I kinda missed the puzzles though. And I actually thought the kid would get pwned in some encounters. He did not. Know why? Cos he simply hightailed it by jumping around like a monkey and escaped...

actually their technque disturbingly reminds me of yanwei. they are the people who keep on spamming buttons and attacks, without actually considering which is the best move to kill them. Oh, and they almost never block as well. I have never thought there would be a day where I felt there was simply too much potions. Normal Mode seems freaking easy... Honestly, they would get sluaghtered in hard and very hard, not to mention master ninja.

So...I waited for around 1 and a half hours to get my turn to play, simply because I was a gentleman and did not want them to feel suaned. When I did play, I immedaitely went into mission mode, and played on very hard difficulty. The remaining people seemed kind of surprised. I did use a bit of 1-handed gameplay, while keeping a nonchalant expression on my face. When I kept on using ultimate technqiues, the other kids were stunned. I bet none of them have actually saw an ultimate technique ever.

Ironically, I died on the mission where I used ryu to fight a tentacled beast (Japanese are perverts man..fetishes...). while I did not die when playing the rachel missions. From this humbling experience, i have derived 3 main laws.

1. Never play a mission on a difficulty you never tried before.
2. When playing the challenging missions, dun do it in public
3. Dun use a unfamiliar weapon just cos it looks cool.

the only things I have in my defense was the unfamiliar weapon and the frame lags. I never thought the game had such dramatic lags in the intense battles and such. anyway, I still lost with grace and handled my controller calmly to the other kids. After all, within 5 min, I completed 3 missions with rachel. and almost killed the boss in the mission with ryu. so yeah...

Ok, I know I am not THE master of ninja gaiden, but I can dare say I'm above average. Sometimes its just furstrating to see people thinking they are good, when they are simply insulting the game with their skills. (and not even knowing it)

So ya. I will post more on MOTORSTORM and its unique fanfictions next time.

Walao

2007-07-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

some crazy guy wanted me to post. so here I am. I will probably edit this later.

Testimonial sucks

2007-07-22T05:29:00.001-07:00

rite. I know its been a long time since I updated, since the last one. Anyway, nothing much to say except that the testimonial sucks...

I mean, come on. Its not as if we dun do suaning enough at school. We get suaned by each other for every single thing, and its bad enough that other people are doing that to you. This time, you get to suan yourself. Happy rite? No sweat rite? NOT.

Basically, you have to write it in the 3rd person perspective, judging from a SUPPOSED objective angle (who the hell would write that he sucked even if it was true?), I find it ironic that I find myself refering to myself in the 3rd person mode almost every single day. After all, 我是天下第一自恋狂.

Academic...theres nothing to talk about. Just got a few lucky breaks for english and lit, but when compared to maths and science.... its a nightmare. I can't very well say I got the best improvement in physics in sec 2 cos I jumped from a zero to a six upon ten for the next one, can I?

Chinese is...okay. I'm not doing THAT bad for it, though yang chaimay is convinced that I have "堕落了，可以go to hell, 去和碧山庭的好朋友说hello" sigh... I seriously dropped in my chinese. I want a 80!!!!! damn. Am I suaning? no, I guess

I have loads to say about CCA, seeing as me and zhikay sorta were the seniors since sec 2, when Nicholas ran out on us and Bing Liang joined percusiion. Nothing too much about leadership, (yeah right, I'm SURE that I would say "Wen qiang's pioneering actions such as insane pushups and stupid essays have raised the standard musically and in terms of discpline")

My official House record is dumb. For 4 years, people have been calling me to go and join stuff. Ask me to join tennis? I suddenly developed a fatal fever. Ask me to join chess club? I got a headache. Ask me to go swimming? I can't swim... yeah Red would agree with me on that. But Omega21 got recruited anyway. not that he actually swam in the end...

The testimonial is dumb, asking you to suan yourself. But I supposed thats life. so ya.

heres a pic to satisfy my computer technician and idol, Ningyu and Ronald.

Something important

2007-07-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

I have been feeling quite down this few days. Our ex-conductor Mr Yeo passed away on Tuesday morning... When Lawrence walked by and told me.. I asked him to repeat it 3 times. I thought...I was hearing things. I thought he was saying something else. But no. It was the truth. Yang lao shi had indeed passed away.

After Lawrence left me, my mind was simply blank. I was thinking...how could such a thing happen? I had originally refused to belive it. But, reality is simply a dream from which we all seek to escape from. I dunno. Hopes were all so high that he could recover, recover in time to watch our concert. even if he could not make it physically, we could at least take a video tape of the concert to let him watch. I was thinking, why did it have to be so cruel that he could not even witness our appreciation, our tribute, our concert to him. Why did we have to be so slow? If we had hurried it out, did things faster, perhaps we could have our concert in the june holidays.. and we wun be regretting it rite now.

Yang lao shi was a kind and good man, he never ever scolded us for our mistakes and faults. Even though the orchestra was always talking and late, he always firmly believed that discipline must always come from yourself, rather than something that must be imparted... God, if time reetted itself, I would have took a more active role and try to maintain discpline. I dun want our last impression in yang lao shi's eyes to be an orchestra that has no discpline and self-respect.

Everyone takes something for granted, and when you do realize that, its always too late. everyone thought that yang lao shi WOULD recover, that he WILL. So did I, and I wanted to make the concert a great success, for him. Heck care about the advisory roles I'm supposed to do, I wanna see it through that the concert will succeed. I realized that death is not a stranger that we would only meet occasionally. This is not a movie, nor a drama serial where death was loudly ephamsized and foreshadowed. Ultimately real life is more cruel, death can strike at the most unlikely moments.

I...think that i'm heartless. yang lao shi was a caring mentor to all of us, but his passing was unable to draw a single tear from me? am...I heartless? Truth be told, I have never shed a single tear since 10 years ago. But...I should be feeling more than this. Why am I not absolved in grief? I know I shld be...There is a void inside me, yes, but why is it not bigger? Why does that not consume me utterly. YY and someothers from co did cry out. Does that make their feeling towards yang lao shi more deep? Or am I simply unable to feel... I dun know. Theres a saying 男儿有泪不轻弹，只是未到伤心处。 When will my limit come? I simply do not understand my lack of emotion.

When Ms Lim asked the entire CO to stay back the next day, to inform them about yang lao shi's passing, I may be one of the people who said they have nor problem, but I stayed back all the same. Though I did not display any significant emotion, I do know that my voice was wavering and shaky... We are going to perform at yang lao shi's wake.. I dun want us to play Huan xin, its meant as a joyous song and it simply does not fit..

I think Zhuan Deng is better, it reflects the skills and values that yang lao shi imparted to us. I know that the sec 2s and 1s do not know yang lao shi very well. perhaps this feeling can only be shared by the sec 3s and 4s. Even the JC and beyond people are affected by this matter.When I go for the wake on sat after prac, I seriously do not know what I'm going to do. I want to make a speech about yang lao shi. I really regret that I had not visited him. It is especially bitter that we were originally planning to visit him sometime this week. The video that I made for yang lao shi, I heard he was very happy... but did he get the chance to watch it? was his spirits lifted by it? I wanted to observe his reactions...to see that kind and smiling face once more. I wanted to hear his kind words once more. But no, fate has denied me this chance, just this tiny little request.

yang lao shi, will always be here for us, in our hearts.

sigh...why? 我想哭却又哭不出来...

FFVIII cosplay

2007-07-11T04:24:00.000-07:00

As promised, and numerous requests from Ningyu, here are FFVIII cosplay pics. Not too much, considering that few people can do FFVIII cosplay WELL, hence its limited pics.

Heres Rinoa.

Well heres another Rinoa, played by famous cosplayer Yubita Yuna. Incidentally, she is a professional cosplayer who always take poses with her mouth closed. That is because of her crooked teeth. (unbelievable isn't it?) She has also cosplayed as Yuna and Rikku on separate occasions.

Heres another Rinoa, whos rather cute! Pity that she only has 2 pics of her, one of them in Rinoa's dance dress.

Heres Selphie, whos played by the ever charming Yubita Yuna

heres the rest of the people(coughcoughumimportantcoughcoughcharacterscough)

And heres final one. THE GACKT-inspired Squall. Though Nomura always said that Squall was not inspired from Gackt, the simlarity is there regardless.

BB, I feel like emoing today. cos theres a really sad thing that happened today...
but...I really dun have the mood to do so, until then.

Cosplay

2007-07-07T21:48:00.001-07:00

Firstly, this post was inspired from another blog, where the post was titled "Why Americans shld NOT cosplay" Well, I kinda agree to a certain extent, if ya can't do it perfectly, then DON'T. Cos its kinda sad... you worship the character you like, but you end up disgracing it. (Please note that all comments are strictly personal opinion, if ya feel offended, dun look for me)

Heres the link to the other blog: http://morbidoptimism.com/forums/2007/05/03/americans-shouldnt-cosplay/

But as a celebration to the best and brightest cosplay the world has to offer, heres a few pics as a sample.

Here is one of the 2 BEST tifa cosplayers I have ever seen. She shld be offered a movie role as tifa if Square Enix ever wanted to make a live FF7 movie.

Heres the same tifa cosplayer with her friends. I particularly like the one with Cloud, though I think the cosplayer of Cloud is a female...

Heres the other Tifa cosplayer, one of the best 2 that I mentioned above. (Shes my girlfriend as well. Lol. NOT.)
Sadlly, I could not find other pics of her... She cosplayed as Rikku AND Kadaj as well(Yes, they are one and the same person). I heard from some people on the internet, that she photoshopped the pics a bit, but still you have to have the assets to look nice as well rite?

Next up is Cloud, not too much good cosplays of him.. cos you would have to be a millionaire to afford the hair gel for his spiky hairstyle...
And then theres the rest of the cast.. of FFVII

Thats it folks...next post will be about FF8 cosplayers. Until then bb

I am EMO

2007-07-05T05:04:00.000-07:00

finally have a chance to update. Hows news eh? Firstly, I want to let the world know I AM EMO.

the term "emo" is first coined by the great Lao Zheng, consequently it is spread throughout the lands as a new fashion statment. An extremely popular line of emotion, it is greatly welcomed by teenagers from age 12-18. Most infamously, it has acheived wide-spread recognition through the efforts of 1 individual: Ronald

I am one of the most notable practionioers of this unique art. However, in case those who dun know it yet (dummies they are), I AM EMO

By definition, "emo" is a state of mind which requires intense focus to succeed. One must moan and groan about every single thing, as though it would end the world the next day.One must talk in philosophical babbles, and quote unknown poems and verses from dead people of all religions, culture and language,

There is 1 big pre-requisite to being EMO. Firstly, your grades and school work must be shitty, your fail the easiest tests, you pass the difficult ones, your favourite subject is your worst, while the bane of your existence saves your butt.

Secondly, you must have an alter-ego. The reason being is that you can talk to yourself if you feel like it, (which is most of the time) EMO people seem to be okay in the front, but they are actually lone wolves, confiding their thoughts to a few people alone. Well, in case you dummies dun know who my alter-ego is....its YOU.

Every single person in the world is me, except for a few individuals. Because I have a alter-ego known as Valance. Valance is a sad guy...hes always gripping about his sense of identity and what now. In short, he thinks hes a tragic hero. Not.

Anyway, in order to look cool and "drive the unhappy memories away", Valance delights in dressing up in masks and imposing as everybody. In the words of Red Elriza and Winter, "Its not that hes making copies of himself, its just that Valance moves too fast to be seen. If Valance decided to stop for 1 second, the world would only comprise of 6 individuals"

Well...so Valance is a sad guy. He fulfills the qualifications of being EMO.

I bought a Lumicalx Accessory necklance from the weapons of shop of 77th Street in the empire of Junction 8. Trying to look cool? nah... just simply finding out how many ways can I kill myself with the string. Oh well, at least yanwei decided to follow my footsteps. Eh Yanwei, wanna be EMO izzit? lol, thus commiting suicide is one of the end results of being EMO. No one can call himself EMO before attemtping to kill him. Up till now, I have yet to meet a emo person AFTER he dies. Too bad...

An EMO person has many interests and likes, however he finds little time to fulfill them. His dreams are crushed, his hopes shattered. The only way out of this unending torment of suffering is to be EMO. The only method to save himself from the ocean of sorrow is....to simply practise drowning in it. Try it, really, it works.

to be emo, it is recommended that he plays some form of music as well. Most often, hes stuck with an instrument that he likes to play, but finds no time for it (as well). Ironically, it is this otherworldly CCA that he feels the closest to, outside of the classroom. It is highly likely, that he possess SUPERIOR vocal quality, and burst out into song over the famous "Godhand" ending song. If he feels interested enough, not even Mr Goo and Winter can stop them from destroying "The Skies above"

An Emo person tries to be pro in chinese, but flails miserably. He feels no motivation to post in chinese anymore, because hes afraid of getting himself mugged by the hordes of people who are utterly aghast at his "horrendous command" of the language.

Well, lastly a emo person must, from time to time, talk nothing but crap. Evidenced by the say 500 words of garbage above, I would say I'm pretty much THE standard for EMONESSS.

So ya.. bb

I'm Alive

2007-07-01T05:51:00.000-07:00

Ok. I'm still alive, though buried under a mountain of hw. No time to talk, no time to die. No time for heroes. Talk more later

bb

Heres some photos from the Play! Concert

Play! Concert

2007-06-26T04:12:00.000-07:00

it was a truly magical moment as we could finally watch the PLay! concert, the only concert to feature music from video games. I mean, its like so rare that they actually come to Singapore and perform when there are many higher profile countries.

Anyway, we had CO dazu prac first in the morning, before me, Yan Wei and Diwei went to the local Granaldo Espada party. Its basically a party about this Korean MMORPG which art direction and design totally pwns FFXII (maybe lah) I took time to dress up in my best attire, cos I was going to the Play! COncert later as well.

I wanted to wear all black, just as I did in my famed English Day Street Performance when I was in Sec 2. I wore black jeans, black shirt, and a BLACK blazer, combined with Black sunglasses, black shoes and socks. It was imbar then, a pity it was too hot. But my mum decided that I was positivly crazy about my love for black colors, she forced me to wear a simple red shirt instead. Well, I dun really care much about fancy designs. Simple sometimes is always best.

Anyway, I was late (as usual) wen I met yanwei and diwei at City Hall Mrt, so I caused them to wait 1/2h before we could get on the shuttle bus. When we did reach there, I was not too impressed. Because the exterior was just a normal cafe. But when I went into the building, I realized how huge the "cavern" was. Neon lights were put up, with green lights signifying the portal to the party. and it was a big party. Damn crowded. I realized that it was a night club for the seats provided are a dead giveaway.

Overall, I would not say it was a waste of time. Though I had no interest in MMORPGs, at least I got a free PSM magazine. btw singaporean gamers suck. They got wiped out in the final round of that competition with korean gamers.

After that it was time to meet yuchen and ningyu. We went to eat at Cafe Cartel, cos it was quite a special occasion, its the PLAY! CONCERT!!!! btw, do you know whos ningyu? Greatest FF8 fan ever, though unforgiving to others who think otherwise. Anyone who disagress with him can "just go to hell" as he says. Lol, Ningyu you still can't answer my question of why random witches appear during the time compression in ff8.

My eyes hurt quite badly that night, cos I was wearing contact lens; quite strainous on the eyes. But it was nothing compared to yanwei pulling his rubber teeth out every now and then.

The Esplande concert hall had a big Blue Dragon figure outside the entrance of the hall. Yuchen says theres someone inside, but I dun think so. We resolved to put aside our hatred for Xbox 360 and HiroNOOBu SUCKERguchi for the while.

The concert opened up with Nobuo making a welcome speech. That guys a genius man. Here I progress to a track by track review.

1. "Play! A video game symphony opening fanfare" By Nobuo Uematsu
Well, this first track is always played in this concert, cos its the theme specially composed for this concert. Nothing too spectacular, cos the gd stuff is all in the back. But it does get your spirits rising and your excitement boiling past the point of no return for the later songs. So heres the verdict: 7/10

2. "Super Mario Bros Suite" By Koji Kondo
Well, it starts getting interesting now. Its MArio man. Its melody is light hearted and funny, the projector screens showing the funny moments when mario simply jumps on the enemy to kill it. the music is seamlessly synched with the video as both display coordination when the video scenes are changed. For example when Mario goes underwater. a solid 8/10

3. "Shenmue and Shenmue II Sedge Tree" By Takenobu Mitsuyoshi
Firstly, this is quite possibly the best song I found as far. Its so enchantingly epic and yet tragic as well. Its nostalgic tune brings goosebumps to my skin even now. btw, the composer of this song is the only composer present for this concert. Anyway, the video scenes are simply superb, the cutscene where a man and woman rides on a motorcycle, each wearing sad expressions as if the weight of the world were on their slumped shoulders. Its truly heartbreaking as they ride on the long and endless lonely road of the night. Simply amazing: 10/10 Perfect

4. "Lost Odyssey Main theme" By Nobuo Uematsu
Well, its another of Uematsu-san's works. It sounds okay, and it has the distinctive Shiro Hamaguchi arranging style, where the opening is started with deep tones, while the timpani creates a military march feeling. The middle portion is devoted to a melodious segment where they are played only by the strings. The last portion is rounded off by bringing back the original heroic theme. The visuals have good synching, but the cinematics seem a bit static, where the characters move in mechanical fashion. A 7/10

5. "Sonic the Hedgehog Suite" by Masato Nakamura
Heres a piece that has amazing video footage shown. Its really cool when you have a half realistic sonic zooming past thousands of obstacles while the orchestra is playing the music. I wonder how the recent game only got 6.0 according to gamespot. The grahpics are quite impressive. Music is not as memorable as the others though it wins on visual display. A 8/10

6. "Metal gear Solid Main theme" By Tappy Iwase, Kazuki Muraoka
Ah..we have come to this stealth based game, for which I am known to go in guns blazing kicking ass (though often I get my butt kicked in the name of honor). Its Main theme is militaristic and dark, yet imbuing us with a sense of epicness with great stories and strong soldiers fighting and dying. Its nothing short of awe insipring and the video works perfectly well with the music. I think i can detect a hint of sorrow within the music, for those that have died in the needless wars of others. They even squeezed in a footage of MGS4 at the end. Nice. A perfect score 10/10

7. "Blue Dragon Main Theme" by Nobuo Uematsu
Again, typical nobuo uematsu style, with a great start and later a section devoted to melodious and soothing portion. The visuals are heavily inspired frm Dragon ball, and overall quite a fair piece. Not too bad, but nothing too special either. 7/10

8. "Kingdom hearts Suite" By Yoko Shimomura
Finally, we come to this seemingly unlikely franchise. Frankly speaking, I knew it was limited on visuals as Square Enix did not provide any cinematics for FF at all. So it was a complete surprise when we saw brief frames of Cloud, Sephiroth, Tifa, Auron. They chose to heavily feature "Passion" by Utada Hikari. when I first bought the single, I thought "Passion" was a bit too abstract. But it sounds wonderful when played by the strings section. I would have awarded this piece 9/10 but the absence of the theme "Dearly Beloved" was sorely missed, and thus it has a score of 8.5/10

9. "Final fantasy VI Dancing MAd" By Nobuo uematsu
Well, I know alot of us including ningyu, were upset that FF8's "Liberi Fatali" and FFX's "Swing de Chocobo" were completely taken out. This was wat replaced them and we were sorta biased against it. overall, it had a general feeling of gothic weirdness with overemphasis on the organ, which reminds me of Phantom of the Opera. One thing I can say: its gd. Its like the One Winged Angel for FF6, and ff6 was the most critically acclamied FF ever. 8/10

Intermisson
We went out of the hall during the intermission, for which we had to endure ningyu's numerous moans and groans about how the chocobo theme was not featured. Lol, he said that was the only real reason he came for the concert. Took a few pics with Yuchen, pity you can't use camera in the hall..

After Intermission, all the big games start coming up.

10. "Daytona USA" Takenobu Mitsuyoshi
This is awesome man, theres only 1 piano and the composer HIMSELF was playing it. He carried a Sonic toy and waved around with it. Damn funny. Later he threw it into the crowd, lucky people... This piece is from a racing game and the composer suddenly breaks out into song. It was damn cool as he performed humorously with his questionable Engrish. this is simply one of the greatest highlights in this concert
10/10!

11. "The elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Suite" by Jremey Soule
It had one of the best visuals and graphics of the night. Combined with a good score, it has a solid feel to its depth and storyline. 8/10

12. "Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross Suite" by Yashunori Mitsuda
These 2 games were universally acclaimed with gamespot awarding it a perfect 10. Likewise its music does not dissapoint. Overall has nice melodies. Limited Visuals though give it a 8.5/10

12. WOW (World of Warcraft Suite) by Jason Hayes
Well, heavy reliance on drums brings across the tribal feeling of the orcs. It also symbolizes the starting of the unending war. Good use of percussion. 9/10

13. "Halo Suite" by Martin O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori
This is a bit of an inside joke, but when my dad firt got me a xbox, he told me it was its flagship game. the moment I loaded the game, when the music at the starting screen played with its haunting choir, I switched off the console. It led at the bottom of my games rack for the next 3 years. Now that I'm older, my "fear" has vanished. This song really opened up my insights. Previously, I had only thought military music could be used for FPS, but there is in fact a soothing, haunting portion within it. Better than expected. 8/10

14. "Castlevania Suite" by Michiru Yamane
I heard from yuchen it was one of the best fighting 2d games. and clearly it pns mario. haha. well, its music is creepy and dark, again relying on the organ to give that gothic sense. Not bad. 8/10

15. "The Legend of Zelda Suite" by Koji kondo
The visuals were impactful as they showed the graphics progression throughout the years. Link remains one of the most popular characters after all. moving music throughout weaves an interlocking progressing music, which then ends on a high and hopeful note. 9/10

16. "Final fantasy VII ONE WINGED ANGEL" by Nobuo Uematsu
YESYESYES!!!!!! Months of waiting have finally paid off. Arguably the most well-known video game music, it is the theme of the baddest and coolest villian everL SEPHIROTH. its the old orchestral version, with the old lyrics and without metal rock band accompaniment. Shame, I kinda prefer the Advent Children version. Several mild variations are in place, keeping the song freash, especially when the drums come into action. Even though, I felt the song was quite "empty" without drumsets and electric guitars, it was still a magical experience. Pity there were no cinematics, if Sephiroth is shown rising from the flames, the experience would have been vastly superior. 10/10

We cheered so loudly that we were practically hoarse. Encore ENCORE!!!!! and we never clapped louder and Arnie roth, the conductor returned for the encore. It was music from Shinobi. Actually there was a online vote about the encore piece, it included nominees like Shadow of the Collussus. But because there were no FF, I did not vote...

Arnie Roth finished conducting Shinobi, which was quite nice actually, and went backstage. Once again, we cheered some mad. We could not let the night end just like this we wanted something more. When Arnie Roth returned, once again we shouted out with joy, Ningyu and Yuchen and I hoped that it would be Liberi Fatali, but it was instead...."ONE WINGED ANGEL" again. Not that I minded though, but still hope was high for FF8's pieces to be played.

Regardless, it was a very fun night. its certainly something I will never forget. Come on Square Enix, bring the next FF oncert here, or your balls are mine!!!!!!!

Welcome back

2007-06-26T04:01:00.000-07:00

Hi. I made it back after a 1 month hiatus. Been doing a hell of things during this June holiday.. with the usual headaches over procastination of homework. But well..firstly, it was my brother's passing out parade (where everyone passes out in the sun) in the army where he finished his BMT (Basic Military Training)
Well, a picture speaks a thousand words. so there you go..

Sigh...

2007-06-05T05:19:00.000-07:00

Love is complicated. It can be so fickle at times. Even if you once thought that it would last an eternity, disaster can still strike and rob you of that fleeting happiness.

Love between man and woman is 'selfish'. It is not the love that a mother gives. For that kind of love is truly noble, no strings attached. It is not the love that binds friends together, for there possesses respect, knowledge that there are some lines that could never be crossed, some barriers of circumstance that can never broken. No, the love between male and female is something else entirely. It comes with a veiled demand, that orders that other individual to make the same sacrifice as you.

It concerns only the 2 of the individuals involved. When you supposedly fall in love, your personality changes. You hesitate to share her with anybody. Even in the so called love triangles, where someone has to back up, he does so with the words that "it will be okay as long as she as happy" And thats an utter lie. No false words could have been spoken so clearly and without shame. Who will ever give up the love of your life (or so you think)? Pretense that her happiness would mean yours, is merely a facade. No matter who that other person is, no matter how superior he is, or how compatible he is, you will never accept it. You can't. Thats what makes us human. To compete, to grip so tightly what we hold dear.

What happens when you hold something too tightly, constrict it with vice-like grips? What you love will be destroyed. Because you were too selfish to let it go, to give it a breathing space. When you make a mock pretense of relaxing, those fingers are still there, wary that their prey would escape. In the end, its hard for both of them.

Love is selfish because theres rejection and devotion. You feel no affection for one whos willing and lay his life on the line for you. All because for your personal happiness. It is selfish as you sacrifice someone's happiness for your own. Yet, at the same time, the other party is totally devoted, willing to believe that that someday will come where a chance will come. And that chance is interrupting the life of the one whom you love.

I'm not saying we should reject love. Love is our nature. Yet, theres such a fine line between love and bitterness. It lies but upon the edge of a knife, stray but a little and all will fail. Its about time we stopped deluding ourselves about the perfect nature of love, because it isn't. Its only as flawed as the human race itself.

Song of the Week
Heres a scene from Phantom of the Opera

THE LABYRINTH UNDERGROUND
(Meanwhile, down below, we see the PHANTOM and
CHRISTINE in the boat, crossing the underground
lake)
PHANTOM (furiously propelling the boat onwards)
Down once more to the dungeon of my black despair!
Down we plunge to the prison of my mind!
Down that path into darkness deep as hell!
(He rounds on her, bitterly)
Why, you ask, was I bound and chained
in this cold and dismal place?
Not for any mortal sin, but the
wickedness of my abhorrent face!

(Faintly)
Track down this murderer, he must be found!
Track down this murderer, he must be found!

PHANTOM
Hounded out by everyone, met with hatred everywhere
No kind words from anyone, no compassion anywhere (sobs) Christine. (says) Why? Why!?

GIRY
Your hand at the level of your eyes (echoed by RAOUL and a CHOIR)

CHRISTINE
Have you gorged yourself at last in your lust for blood?
Am I now to be prey to your lust for flesh?

PHANTOM
That fate which condemns me to wallow in blood, has also denied me the joys of the flesh.
This face this infection which poisons our love.
This face which earned a mothers fear and loathing.
A mask, my first unfeeling scrap of clothing
Pity comes to late, turn around and face your fate!
An eternity of THIS (points vicously to face) before your eyes.

CHRISTINE
This haunted face holds no horror for me now.
It's in your soul that the true distortion lies.

PHANTOM
Wait! I think, my dear, we have a guest! Sir! This is indeed, an unparrelled delight. I had rather hoped that you would come. And now my wish comes true, you have truely made my night.

RAOUL
Free her! Do what you like only free her! Have you no pity?

PHANTOM (Dryly to CHRISTINE)
Your lover makes a passionate plea.

CHRISTINE
Please, Raoul it's useless

RAOUL
I love her, does that mean nothing?
I love her, show some compassion!

PHANTOM (rounds on him)
The world showed no compassion to me!

RAOUL
Christine, Christine, let me see her!

PHANTOM
Be my guest sir!
Monseuir I bid you welcome.
Did you think that I would harm her?
Why would I make her pay for the sins which are yours!

(captures RAOUL and pins him to the gate)

Order your fine horses now!
Raise your hand to the level of your eyes!
Nothing can save you now...
Except perhaps Christine...
Start a new life with me!
Buy his freedom with your love,
Refuse me and you send your lover to his death!
This is the choice,
This is the point of no return!

CHRISTINE
The tears I might have shed for your dark fate grow cold,
And turn to tears of hate!

RAOUL
Christine forgive me please forgive me! I did it all for you and all for nothing.

Phantom: To late for turning back. To late for prayers and useless pity.

Raoul: Say you love him and my life is over.For either way you choose he has to win.

Phantom: Past the point of no return, no use in fighting. For either way you choose you cannot win.

Phantom:So do you end your days with me or do you send him to his grave?

Raoul: Why make her lie to you to save me?

Christene: Angel of music you decived me. Why do you curse mercy?

Phantom: Past the point of no return. The final threshold......

Raoul: Christene say no. Say no. Don't throw your life away for my sake. I fought so hard to free you.

Christine: Angel of music, You decived me, I gave my mind blindly

Phantom: You ty my patience. Make your choice.

Christene: Pitiful creature of darkness. What kind of life have you known? God give me courage to show you you are not alone!

MOB: Track down this murderer - he must be found! Hunt out this animal, who runs to ground! Too long he's preyed on us - but now we know: the Phantom of the Opera is there deep down below ...
Who is this monster, this murdering beast?
Revenge for Piangi!
Revenge for Buquet!
This creature must never go free ...

PHANTOM: Take her - forget me - forget all of this ...
Leave me alone - forget all you've seen ...
Go now - don't let them find you!
Take the boat - leave me here - go now, don't wait ...
Just take her and go - before it's too late ...
Go ...
Go now - go now and leave me!

PHANTOM:
Masquerade ...
Paper faces on parade ...
Masquerade ...
Hide your face so the world will never find you ...
Christine, I love you ...
RAOUL AND CHRISTINE:
Say you'll share with me, one love, one lifetime ...
say the word and I will follow you ...
Share each day with me ...
... each night ...
... each morning ...
PHANTOM:
You alone can make my song take flight -
it's over now, the music of the night

Tanbo Prac

2007-05-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

haha, Wed's prac was quite special. Considering that no one were using the CO room, therefore the entire tanbo had their prac with us yangqin people together. Really, its like damn special, cause I was always separated from them during prac, cause of circumstances... Today, though some people were missing, could possibly be one of the most fun pracs we had ever.

I came to CO room at around 9.30, thanks to Chun yin. haha, he needed me and Biran and Edmund's help to do stock check. I wanted to clean up the entire CO room completely, but blasted RJ people kept leaving stuff around. so dunno whether can clear or not. next, ms lim came by and grilled us on the concert. She also discussed about the future posts, and who will be taking them. Obviously, I will not mention names here...cos its all top-secret...(supposedly)

A hell lot of names for the name of the concert popped up, have to put them to a vote on sat dazu. I brought my camera and Red's video cam finally for our recording session. Needless to say, it was a real blast. For "huan xin", we kept delaying cos tanbo could not decide whether or not they should stand and greet the conductor. Also, no one bothered to follow my time anyway. Anyway, lots of confusion, even asked biran to beat the drum during the first part.

We proceeded on the "Huan Chuan Wu Qu", the boat rowing lullaby, played by the zhongruan people. edmund suddenly went crazy and made damn funny actions and facial expressions. That a guy is a real comedian man! He might seemed damn serious, but actually he has a very good humor. He inspired us to start acting like clowns during the recording session.

Lol, I tricked the zhongruan people into playing it again, cos I wanted to record the "dramatiztion" of the song properly. I started by taking a stick as a oar and rowed towards them. Edmund mimed drowning into the ocean. It was damn hilarous. the zhongruan people could hardly play as they were too busy laughing. Diwei had to spoil the entire thing by stopping and throwing something at me. Damn, wasted... maybe we can do it again somethime?

Kwang Yi volunteered for comic moments for the second time through his solo. What happened was total mayhem where everybody started doing random stuff, and I finally got a chance to show the world the "godhand dance" with Edmund. Lol. eventually, we had a random advertisement on a tuner, before heading back to the main course. It did not last long, as Kwang Yi had hand cramps cos it was very tiring for him.. thus ends a spectacular day... lol, it was a fun filled afternoon.

Slack.

2007-05-27T06:03:00.001-07:00

Its the june holidays... slacking for the first weekend before officially starting work. Theres so much homework... And jing hua was like saying Low June Ming came and asked if there is any hw and there "shouldn't" be hw given. Should is the keyword...

Sigh...Red is going for the japan trip, wished I could go. But the price is clearly a big proble. I keep thinking that the money can be put to better use. But I know, I'm never gonna use it personally. Its just a waste...

Co Performance for founder's day was quite ok. After several times of humliation for conducting, its finally over. Thomas could not play timpani, cause he injured himself. I wonder how he did it. We had to look for TBL who just finished his concert: percussion only.

KK, time for me to review the concert. Where better than to start with the brillantly designed ticket... It generally looked like a rip-off from a scene in Mario from the 60s era. I could not find the address of the venue. So I turned over to the back and saw "music and Dance Private Limited, Alpha building" and I thought that was the venue. So I went there with red, and guess wat? it looked like a rundown factory, even my dad had his doubts, and we all thought TBL was crazy. We went into building's first floor, darkness... We took the elevator...darkness... and suddenly the elevator opened... to a rough looking man in a business suit. We hurriendly went back to the first floor and ran 20 meters away... Its like a freaking ghost story.

Then we looked at a tiny corner of the ticket, where the REAL address was barely visible within the background. Thanks BL...you wasted 45 min of our time.. Me and red made a pact to deball TBL if the concert was crap.

Actually, the concert was generally very well done, considering that it only involves percussion instruments. Theres a pop medly that however falls flat. The singer was totally drowned out by the 6-7 marimbas and xylophones. With Bing Liang at the drumsets, I dun see how he could be heard. later I heard that, its the first time they played together with the song, so...ya

Phantom of the opera was nice. Harry Potter was questionable. Some pieces were easy like "qing wang dian bin" which I can play a portion as well. Some pieces were very dificult cause of the weird timing. So yeah, Bing Liang keeps his manhood.

The concert was TBL 's idea and all the performers were trained by him. He is certainly a very talented individual when people like me can't even train 1 person properly. Not to mention, he arranged many songs in this concert as well.

The entire concert was practially a "Worship Bing Liang event", Bing Liang went and changed into 3 outfits: a black professionall shirt, an ancient chinese master's shirt and a surfing hip outfit. Lol

Great job Bing Liang!

Maybe I wanna join percusission in RJCO? hmmm, probably not...

A day of reflections and desperate requests.

2007-05-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

Request
Yo guys. Currently for our end of year concert, it is a tribute to Mr
Yeo, who has guided us for so many tulmutous years. Currently me and
Yuchen are planning the concert. We are trying to come out with a
suitable theme for this concert. It is tentatively <<韵忆扬波>>,
sorta symbolizing using a melody to bring back memories, plucking at
the waves of rememberance.

If there are any better suggestions, please do not hesitate to email
me or yuchen at "vanlandil@hotmail.com" and "hongyuchen_705@msn.com".
Otherwise just tell us directly.

Also, I need to have a complete list of members for the various
commitees, so that we can coordinate the direction efficiently.
Current Leaders of the commitees, please email me your full team of
members ASAP. Be reminded to keep me updated if you have new ideas or
movement or new members.

Now, this request is directed to everyone in CO. We know to plan
something special and memorable, cause we dun want this concert to be
a normal "sit there, play finish, end of story" kind of concert.
Think of it as a finale for this year's hard work. Seniors can look
back on their memories in CO, while juniors feel inspired to work
harder for the future.

Please feedback your ideas and suggestions for this year's concert.
what do you guys want to have? what do you guys want to play? the
concert programme is more or less finalized, but we can maybe still
squeeze in a few favourtites, in compliance to our main theme.

Do you guys want to have a stage play, a short skit? anything. If you
really have a cool idea, please do inform us. After all, this is OUR
concert. You can make it fun and enjoyable, with your ideas and
suggestions.

We are in need of fresh and interesting ideas. Please help to
contribute. Thanks

Btw, I think theres some confusion between us and the teachers and SHi Heng, Red and Valance thought that the "planning" of the concert was our job. Dunno, perhaps Shi heng is in charge of executing it? Confusion.
Normal stuff

Today was a screwed up day. Stone around during RE, then skip the rest by going off at 1.35 to pick up instruments for Founders Day rehersal. I have been shifting the yangqin so much in between, I wun be surprised if the yangqin suddenly breaks apart. Honestly, its been like 2 months since I tuned it, and all that banging and scratching is not going to help things.

Ran into Eugene on the way, seemed surprised that we can go off at 1.35... I thought I told ya? maybe maybe not. In any case, Red and I raced to see how was the faster and stronger. It ended in a draw. Valance will always be so fast that million of copies will be left behind. Red will always be so strong that he uses Jupiter as a dumbbell for weightlighting. Lol, crapping now. Sry sry.

like 19 people were absent for unknown reasons. rest were the sec 2s who were away for Malaysian montage. Needless to say, rehersal sounded horrible. First I got jacked by a select few people to conduct, since thomas did not come. They were jeremy, Yee Xiang, Jinghua and SHI HENG. Officially, Shi heng is the 2nd student conductor, but he never does it. I admit that conducting has always been my love, but I know I do not have the talent and chrisma to pull it off...

Long's starting was screwed, cause I perhaps started out too fast, and the rest were more used to a slower pace. It became better as we went on, though the entire CO did not dare to play so loudly...

Sigh...I'm a failure.

Song of the day: THE POWER OF THE GODHAND!!!!!!!

God or demon? What am I?
It's time for me to choose my path
The power of my god hand
No evil doer will get past
Hand or hand or fist to fist
Kick your nuts off twist your wrist
The god power keeps my pimp hand strong
So trust me all you won't last very long
Dragon kick your ass into the milky way (milky way!)
Don't act like you don't like the ball buster (ball buster!)

My Arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm
I'll summon up the power of the God Hand!

Lost a limb in a fight
But don't worry babe I'll be cool
The ultimate power of a god
Is now my secret tool
My defenses are impregnible
My style is impetuous
If it's too much I'll grovel at your feet
I beg for mercy when I feel the heat
Jaw dropping attacks from my roulette wheel (roulette wheel!)
Apocalyptic beat downs from the god hand (god hand!)

My Arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm
I'll summon up the power of the God Hand!

Everybody wants a piece
Who's next? Don't be a fool
Hyperactive fighting styles
So slick they will make you drool
The God Hand helps me work out my stress
It's overpowering I must confess
The only person who it doesn't work on
Is the girl who got me into this Olivia
Slicing through thugs with my shockwave (shockwave!)
More beheading than a guillotine, head slicer (head slicer!)

My Arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm, my arm
I'll summon up the power of the God Hand! (more)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIhguaHzspY

check this out man. one of the best videos ever created. LOL

Sad Day

2007-05-22T08:13:00.000-07:00

It was a wonderful Tues. Where all the slack subjects like philo, CLE, PE and assembly were grouped together. But one thing had to ruin it all... A damn Ambassador from holy Japan had to come over and have a dialogue session..

Gd News? We had to stay from 2.15 to around 4.30. and they only bothered to announce it on the day itself. I even brought a change of clothing to go gym with Red today. Guess wat...cancelled. Red did not come to school today so he skipped this session and went to gym himself.. Sad.

Anyway, ran into Chun Yin and Jowie as we walked to the MRT station. Nice guys, Chun Yin also gives out a sense of asurance. That guy even takes private liuqin sessions. Thats imbar.

Met Red later at the bus stop at Amg Mo Kio. I wasted about 5 min, plus the bus cause I went to the wrong end of the road. Damn, my sense of direction is really poor. I really should do something about that. haha, btw me and Red have decided not to talk about consoles for a month. We are imposing a ban and restriction on ourselves so that we will not feel so depressed everytime. Still, seems like we have some trouble controlling ourselves....

Thanks Red for letting me bathe at his house. Stoned for around 1h watching cinematics before officially starting our discussion about the CO Concert proposal. I thought that a theme was the most impt, so we spent around 2h discussing possible themes and names. I wun reveal wat we chosen, cause its still very tentative.

all in all, quite a depressing day cause tmr still got lit test and possible phy prac. cya later.

Heres the song for today.

歌手：周杰伦专辑：依然范特西

你的泪光柔弱中带伤
惨白的月弯弯勾住过往
夜太漫长凝结成了霜
是谁在阁楼上冰冷地绝望

雨轻轻弹朱红色的窗
我一生在纸上被风吹乱
梦在远方化成一缕香
随风飘散你的模样

菊花残满地伤
你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠我心事静静躺
北风乱夜未央
你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在湖面成双

花已向晚飘落了灿烂
凋谢的世道上命运不堪
愁莫渡江秋心拆两半
怕你上不了岸一辈子摇晃

谁的江山马蹄声狂乱
我一身的戎装呼啸沧桑
天微微亮你轻声的叹
一夜惆怅如此委婉

菊花残满地伤
你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠我心事静静躺
北风乱夜未央
你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在湖面成双

菊花残满地伤
你的笑容已泛黄
花落人断肠我心事静静躺
北风乱夜未央
你的影子剪不断
徒留我孤单在湖面成双

Its a nice song. Me and Yinan used to scream out the lyrics in olden days.

Open House

2007-05-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

Just felt like putting this pic today...

Open house today was pretty much a subdued affair... Went at around 9.30, to the atrium. Shi heng was setting up the booth and Biran. I hate to say it, but the notice board was "pretty pathetic" according to Ms Lim and Mr Lim. Sad to say but its true. Just info about wat instruments there are, nothing about RICO. nothing about practice venues and times. Looks like a shoddy effort.

The ppt was better done, though I contributed to its loss in quality. I only sent the ppt at around 12.15 and I could not find any pics of tanbo's instructor Mr Ling Hwee Loong. I finally found an orbituary like pic, black and white, in some random CO from 10 years back. Hey At least I provided entertainment.

Slacked around for some time, before going back to the RJCO to check things out. Actually I wanted to play the god hand song through its speaker, but people were around. I might have seemed crazy (more than usual)

It was a run back to the RI to meet Yu Chen and Yanwei for lunch. Returning after that was not pleasant. Everybody were stoning around and Mr Lim waited for like half an hour at the atrium. I had to call and urge people to come faster when Ms Sung is saying, "later later, dun need so early"

Percussion were missing people and instruments. Shi Heng was MIA. well you get the picture. We went through our repitore 2 times. the first was the better one. 2nd one was a bit screwed. For dong hai, huqin gan like siao. Sigh...

All in all, our opinion in Mr Lim and the teachers' eyes have once again descended into an eternal black hole. nOt that we ever seen the light really. But damn depressed...

Before I finish, heres the song for today.

Witch Huner Robin (Again. I just lve this series)

Tatoeba dokomade modorebaii? Oshiete
Subete wa Itami wo tomonauhodo azayaka

Hontou wa Wakeaerumono nantenaikara furikaeranakatta

fall into a light sleep Watashi ni michiru
I don't carry out yakusoku wa yagate
Itsukano Kagayaki suteta
Kaerenai asa no hikari noyou

Tsumetai kokoro no soba ni iruyo Kogoete
Tsuzuki wa kobamenaikurai hora asahaka

Kitsukazu ni kaketa kanjou hiroi atsumete Yurushi wo motometara

fall into a light sleep Hitori no yoru ni
I'm beginning to learn kanashimi no shikumi
Anata no Nukumori kakushi
Afuredeta sonoyami ni obieru

fall into a light sleep Watashi ni michiru
I don't carry out yakusoku wa yagate
Itsukano Kagayaki suteta
Kaerenai asa no hikari noyou

How far back should I have to go? Tell me.
Everything is so painfully vivid.

The truth is, we couldn't understand each other,
So I left and didn't look back

Fall into a light sleep, it encompasses my very being
I never carry out my promises
So long ago, I threw away my brightness
And like the light from the morning sun, it can never return.

It lies beside this cold heart, frozen
So completely mindless that it persists forever

Numbly, I gather the remnants of my emotions,
And searching for redemption, I...

Fall into a light sleep, on a lonely night
I'm beginning to learn the designs of sorrow
The hiding away of your warm presence
Makes me fear the overflowing darkness.

Fall into a light sleep, it encompasses my very being
I never carry out my promises
So long ago, I threw away my brightness
And like the light from the morning sun, it can never return.

Reviews

2007-05-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

I have decided that for my each post, I will make reference to at least 1 song, video or other media. Today, I hereby present "Shell" a Japanese Song sung by Bana for the critically acclaimed anime "Witch Hunter Robin"

Hitomi wo fuseruto sugukieteshimaisoude
Jibun ga mishiranu tanin ninattaki gasuru
Kanashiihodo chippokena
Sukuwaretaikara tameiki wo tsukuno janaku
Kakidashite shimatta kodoku no kehai no kazu wo Tada kazoeteitaKawaita jikan no nakade
Oboreterumogaiteru kokoro
Memaiga surukurai no uso wo
Uketomete hikisaita
Soshite watashi ga
mayoikomunowa
Usuyami no sekaiShinjirubekimonono tamenitoeranda basho wa
Jiyuu wo kagi nishita ori no nakadeshou Kesshite mou Nukedasenai
Kawaita nodo no oku de
Hajimatta hakanasa no wake wa
Chikazuku ashita ga kowaikara
Uzukumari kuzuretemo
Watashi wo sagashite sasayakikakeru
Usuyami no koeKawaita jikan no nakade
Oboreteru mogaiteru kokoro
Memaig asurukurai no uso wo
Uketomete hikisaita Soshite watashi ga
Mayoikomunowa
Usuyami no sekai

It's like I'll disappear as soon as I close my eyes
I feel like I've turned into someone that even I don't recognize
Sadly, I've become so small
I want to be rescued, but instead of sighing
I vomited up my loneliness, and just lay there, measuring it all upAmidst this drop of time gone dry
My heart is drowning and writhing
These lies that make me dizzy
I took them and tore them up
And with that,
I became lost
In a world of thin darkness. [1]For the sake of those whom I should trust
I chose to come here, a cage into which I've locked myself, and now
there's no escape.
Deep inside my parched throat
Lies the reason for this growing impermanence [2]
Scared of the approaching tomorrow
I cower and collapse
But it seeks me out and whispers to me
This voice of thin darkness. [1]Amidst this drop of time gone dry
My heart is drowning and writhing
These lies that make me dizzy
I took them and tore them up
And with that, I became lost
In a world of thin darkness.

This song holds especial importance, I think, to our lives. In our midst of competition with each another, the struggle to survive in a cruel unrelenting world, what have we actually become? Have we lost sight of our true self, the part that remains sacred to the very existence of mankind? The innocence that even children are gradually losing and eroding their morality. Have we became such beings that we are afraid of closing our eyes on our reflection in that mirror of the heart. So fearful that if we looked away, we might become beasts the very next instant.

We hope again and again, for a saviour who will break free. A angel who will descend from those cloudy horizons to bring cleansing rain for our decayed souls. We wait. We go about our lives, ignorant to one another, oblivious to the suffering of the world. We still wait. We drown in our own pools of darkness, never extending a hand for others to latch on and move to that warm light. The world that we live in...is a thin and hazy one. Yet, we still wait. Do we actually deserve that redemption?

We will wait eternally, for we will never learn, never will we understand our flaws.

Game woes

2007-05-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

Sony seems to be crumbling in all fronts. Especially the gaming devision. They have reported a loss of 125 billion yen just in the gaming department. The reason? Lack of good games for the PS3.

Lets see... MGS4 is going 460 exclusive.

FFXIII is going 360 exclusive

FFVersusXIII is going 360 exclusive

Kingdom Hearts III is going 360 exclusive

God Of War III is going 360 exclusive

Heavenly Sword is going 360 exclusive

DMC4 is going 360 exclusive

Heck the list goes on and on. No wonder Sony is gonna die....

Btw, everything said above was true except for the games exclusivity part...

They are all going to the 360 (not..)

Hmmm

2007-05-12T06:36:00.000-07:00

yoiz. Today's sat prac was quite alright. For once, Mr Lim never really raised his voice or blow up. He smiles more and cracks more jokes. I sound lame rite? but really, today's prac was really quite inspiring. He was more forgiving of flaws in our playing, giving me the assumption that his mood is dependent on what day is it.

Lets see, on both fri dazus, he raises his voice and has harsh words for us. On sat, like before SYF, he seems much more cordial and accomodating. I can thus infer that he had a fri session with another school, and that school must be damn horrible, hence leading to his foul mood and him taking it out on us. Whoever that school is, they really deserve to be ordered to die by Lao Zheng.

Whoa, I actually managed to pass my 2.4! And it was the best timing in my entire history in RI. Maybe it was cause of the wet weather and the entire group cutting corners, but a pass is still a pass rite? Ruiyong, Chris and Jon Lim is imbar. They like managed to pull ahead of everyone by 2 rounds and finished in 8 min plus. Ruiyong even ran 2.4 twice... Well, not surprising for someone who can give Ting Zhang a run for his money. The 2.4 had both good and bad news. The gd news is that our class perhaps had the best passing percentage overall. Bad news is that Mathan was the only one who did not make it...

After school was swimming carnival. Yay.. We get to see half naked guys, showing off their six packs and whatnot. I'm more interested in other stuff thank you. I rushed to Ang Mo Kio hub to get a chance to play the "HOLY PS3" People are always hogging the thing, surrounded by a large group of friends who will take turns playing. Anyway, I went there partly with the intention of buying Final Fantasy IX, a PS1 game that came out in 2000. For a game thats supposed 2 generations behind the current consoles, its cinematics pwns Wii and some of the Xbox 360 games. That shows the talent of Square Enix. But, I ran out of money and had to resort to pathetic borrowing. I borrowed 25 bucks from Diwei, and 5 bucks from Mrs Eunice Tay, my physics teacher. She seemed damn suspicious of my rationale. I told her I was gonna buy stationary...but she somehow thought I was buying something like porn...erps.

I went with the happy feeling of buying an original game for once, (actually I already have the game. I downloaded the 4GB file but found out that the current CDs have limited storage space...zzz, I wondered what kind of compressing software Square used...), only to find out...that I was still short of 10 bucks. I felt like a fool back then. So I decided to erase the feeling by playing "Resistance: Fall Of Men" for my first time! Graphics are outstanding, but a bit dizzy cause I was standing so close to the TV. Personally I prefer the oldfashioned 1st person shooter rather than 3rd person in Gears of War. And thats a fact, not cause I hate the 360. After so many months of dreaming and foaming in the mouth, it was my turn to hog the PS3.

I played for like 20 min. once again, I discovered the melee attacks work best. Standing there moving back and forth, while shooting inaccurate shots, only causes you more damage and wastes time. I died doing the old fashioned style of using long range fire. When I restarted, I was determined not to fall so easily. See an enemy? charge up to him and give him the butt of your gun. Dies instantly. In fact, I did not even use one entire clip from my gun. I was the new Bruce Lee. Some of my closest friends will recall my nickname "The King of Melee" in FPS. I favour a close-range approach, that is devastating for the enemy. I think i might have revolutionzed the way FPS is played.

I pity the poor Primary 4 kids that were standing nearby watching. I overheard them saying something like,"Hey, after he dies, lets ask from him." Too bad for them, I did not die a single time for around 20 min. one of the kids got so demoralized that he walked away. It was only after I realised I was running late, that I gave the controller to the kid. He only realized why when he started playing it. I had already cleared the level of all enemies, and when he took a few steps forward, the level ended.. Haha Too bad.

Got lost for around 10 min at the MRT, but I made it back to sch on time. I returned the 5 bucks to Mrs Tay. The dialogue is as follows:"

Mrs Tay: Huh? now got money ah?
Me: no lah, I went to the shop and I did not have enough money..
Mrs Tay: How come? You really need the money or not?
Me: nolah no lah no need...
Mrs tay: How come suddenly cannot buy?
Me: err..errr.eer. They..they suddenly increased the price, yeah increased the price
Mrs Tay: How can do they tat? wat shop is it?
Me: Umm..I can't say
Mrs Tay: why cannot say? what are you up to?
Me:Sigh... I can't say
Mrs tay: Wat is it you wanted to buy?
Me: (Resigned)...A video game mdm.
Mrs Tay: I knew it, no wonder so secretive. You should be happy wat. I stopped you from wasting money on unnessary stuff. Why not thanking me?
Me:.. (In a false cheery tone) Yeah thanks mdm!"

post a bit long, talk more about wat happened in swim carn next time. bb

2007-05-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

Yo. first post...special eh? Not. Setting up a blog was a royal pain in the ***, blogger was picky about HTML, about XML. Though it did teach me something about HTML... There were so many nice blogskins on the net. Some very depressing ones...BUT? Guess what? they're in HTML, which is a real bother to edit as compared to XML... Sigh... not that I dislike this skin...but I had a reallly gd one...Sigh...

Anyway, just finished CCTs. Bio is absurdly the subject which i am most confident of passing...(OMG, wat has the world come to?) History was like... dunno. Open book tests always leave you with little time; theres too many details you wanna write down. Maybe the old-style exams are better, eh? I think I passed Maths.. THINK only.

Anyway, several interesting things happened during this week. But by far, the most memorable event was SS class. We played a game of economical management. We were a group of shoe-makers having to compete with the evil market, banks, landlords and the policemen. Basically, we had to cut some shoe-shaped paper using a template from class register forms. Our group had the biggest manpower. Diwei and Joel played the role of the market, which constantly increased or decreased the selling price of a particular brand of shoes. Meanwhile, Nabil became the landlord and went around collecting rent at insane prices. Imagine selling a shoe for 500 and the landlord asks for 3000 at one go... Siao. No money, go to jail.

We had Marcus as the useless policemen, going around taking bribes instead of keeping order. Lol. Chaos and mayhem ensued after we started. Well, manpower isn;t everything as many people in our group slacked around cause of lack of working materials. From that point, our group became the infamous "Band of thieves" They went around stealing money and manufacturing paper from other groups and the market. They even stole money from the rent collector when he was not looking. LOL

Of course, Landlord threatened us with jail, but since we had so much useless people around, they might as well go to jail. I did my part for the "Land of thieves" by robbing the market in broad daylight, stealing whole stacks of paper. haha, I went to jail for that, though.

Jailbreak commenced 3 seconds later, and it was back to stealing. The game ended 20 mins earlier, owing to the fact that the market was bankrupt.... Haiz. All in all, it was a damn fun game. I realized that in the real world, that such situations do take place because of desperature natures of people. Indeed, this was one of the most useful SS lesson I ever had. We should have more lessons like this, employing games to break across a more serious message.

Well, harped on SS a lot (I love SS now!), cya next time then.

Sayonara